


Run: I'm a Natural Disaster

by plingo_kat



Series: Push AU collection [1]
Category: Push (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3271883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he looks up into the reflection of himself in the kitchen window, his pupils are wide enough to eclipse the blue of his irises.</p><p>(An X-Men: First Class/Push (2009) fusion.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run: I'm a Natural Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Some non-con mind shenanigans and medical experimentation. Written for and with the help of maibeitsmayberlline @ tumblr in, like, 2013.

Three months after Hong Kong, Nick and Cassie are no closer to bringing down Division than they were when they first went on the run together. Kira left a month back, lured away by the Resistance: a group of underground Specials working against Division in a kind of guerilla warfare. They can use her power, they say. She’s the strongest Pusher that has ever existed.

Kira chooses the Resistance. Cassie foresees Nick’s death if they go as well, so they part ways with hugs but no tears, and the two of them keep running. Nick even _dreams_ of running. Cassie dreams of death and Division, Bleeders screaming until their brains leak out of their ears or Movers breaking their necks with the clean sweep of an arm. Both of them are tired.

Tired is bad. Tired means mistakes, and mistakes mean death. They need to find somewhere safe to hole up, regain their strength, but they have the R-16 drug and Division can’t let that stand. There _is_ nowhere safe.

Except.

Rumors of a place – “the Academy,” it’s called – find paths to their ears as they do more favors for other outcasts, people in hiding, criminals, on their eternal quest for safety. Some say it’s in Sweden, others in Canada, yet others in New Zealand or even Australia. Nobody mentions the United States, which has the strongest Division presence in the world.

Naturally, that’s where Cassie’s visions tell them to go.

By the time they arrive both are dangerously worn down. If this doesn’t pan out, they’re likely finished.

A man is waiting for them as they step off the plane in New York. Cassie hisses. She’s drawn his wheelchair.

“Charles Xavier,” the stranger says, holding up a hand and smiling. He doesn’t meet their eyes. “We’ve rather been expecting you.”

 

*

Charles generally doesn’t let himself go very often, but tonight is one of those rare nights. Raven is a subtle, amused presence hovering over his shoulder as he tries out various pick-up lines on the women that catch his eye, steering him gently away when he gets a little too attached. It’s the perfect arrangement for Charles, who doesn’t want any romantic entanglements but does want a bit of female appreciation, and – he brushes across Raven’s mind, just a quick surface check – eminently acceptable to his adopted sister, who finds his antics quite entertaining.

“I think you’ve reached your limit,” Raven says, plucking his whiskey neatly from his fingers. Charles frowns at her.

“That’s a glass of perfectly good—”

Raven knocks the last finger back with nary a flinch, and Charles falls silent.

“You were saying?” she says sweetly.

“You, my dear, are terrible.” Charles can’t stop his grin, however, and offers her a companionable arm. “Luckily, I don’t find that off-putting at all. Shall we depart this den of iniquity?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “You aren’t nearly as charming as you think you are.” She lays her hand on the proffered limb anyway. “Lead on, good sir.”

“Such a lady,” Charles teases as they exit the bar. The crisp night air rejuvenates him, sharpens his senses, and he reaches automatically out with his mind, sensing nobody nearby.

“You can drop it now.”

Raven’s form shifts and ripples. Blonde hair, smooth skin and pouty lips fall away to reveal scars and the almost melted look of previously burned skin running across one cheek and the lower side of her jaw, down her neck and under her dress.

“Time to go home?” She smirks at him, mouth on the undamaged side of her face quirking. “You never could hold your drink.”

“I can so hold my drink,” Charles says before realizing that he sounds like he’s a five year old protesting against needing a bath. He doesn’t take it back though, just lifts his head regally and almost stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Raven says, giggling. She shifts again when he taps her arm to warn of approaching strangers, this time into a brunette. “Taxi!”

 

*

The house at night is large and echoing, and Charles, who is six and three-quarters but quite brave enough to be at least eight mentally, he thinks, can see all a manner of things in the shadows. Ghosts, for one, although he read a book about the Fair Folk just last week and swears that he catches sight of a flash of bright hair in the moonlight.

Never, in all the nights he couldn’t sleep, has he heard anyone other than himself moving about.

When he sneaks into the kitchen and sees his mother, he knows that this is different, this is _wrong_ , this will change everything – and when his mother shifts into a little girl with a bleeding cut over her eye and burns still raw down her throat, he holds out a hand without hesitation.

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Raven.”

“My name is Charles Xavier.”

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“You’re like me.” Charles can feel the excitement rising up in his chest, bursting out onto his face in the form of an uncontrollable grin. “I’m not alone.”

Raven stares at him with wary eyes, frightened, and he tries to calm down.

“I can read minds,” he tells her. “I thought I was the only one who was… different. Special. But now you’re here too. Can you look like anybody?”

“Yes.” Raven moves a little, then winces.

“Oh!” Charles darts forward. “Sorry. We have medicine and stuff in the study. Come on, I’ll show you. And after that we can have snacks. Are you hungry? Why are you here? Do you want to be friends?”

“I-- _yes_ ,” Raven says, sliding a hand into his. “Let’s be friends.”

Charles nods, solemn. He’s read about this too.

“Friends forever,” he promises.

 

*

Bright light pierces though closed eyelids, painting the world in glowing red, and Charles makes a miserable sound in his throat as he turns over.

Maybe he shouldn’t have drank so much last night, but the next day he was going to present of the culmination of all his research, and he’d wanted to cele—

_The presentation of the culmination of his research._

He sits bolt upright, swallowing hard to keep the nausea down, and stumbles into the kitchen before thinking to check the clock. Eight in the morning. The talk isn’t until ten, thank god.

“Oh, so you’re up.”

Charles blinks and finally registers the low hum of Raven’s presence in the back of his mind, soothing and familiar like a favored childhood toy, before he turns and sees her making toast.

“Why didn’t you cut me off?” He winces as the toast pops out, pinging metal too loud for his aching head. “Hand me the Excedrin?” Headaches are part and parcel of his life, although they’re much better now than when he was younger and still learning control.

Raven snorts, but at least she’s considerate enough to do it softly. “I did cut you off. Your head would be a lot worse this morning if I hadn’t brought you home.”

“And I appreciate it, truly,” Charles says. He opens a cabinet and takes hold of the headache medicine triumphantly. Two pills should do it, he thinks, and swallows them dry. Raven watches as she butters her toast.

“Do you think you can eat something? We don’t want you to faint on the podium, after all.”

“That was once, and I was nine.” Charles squints at her. “I’d like to see you do better as I was back then.” The argument has the weight of years behind it, the path of conversation well-worn and grooved, rehashed and brought up so many times they’ve developed a kind of shorthand. Charles doesn’t have to state the reasons for his collapse anymore, just as Raven doesn’t really have to make fun of him; they just raise their eyebrows at each other and huff before shelving the topic for another time.

“Yes.” He finally answers her question. “I’ll have a bit of toast, thanks.”

Raven silently hands over a slice.

Charles thinks as he chews, a process that gets easier as his headache starts to fade. If this talk goes well it could make his career. If it goes badly…

“I know that face,” Raven says before he can sink too deep into brooding. “Relax, you’ll do fine. You could talk the ears off an elephant.”

“Ah, but would that be a good thing?” Despite himself, Charles smiles. Raven can always cheer him up with distracting bits of silliness.

After breakfast he spends fifteen minutes dithering over what tie to wear, picking up and discarding each in turn until he gives up and brings one to Raven, who Shifts it into the perfect shade to match his shirt.

“Get me to renew that before we leave,” she reminds him. She’s best at Shifting her own appearance and objects touching her skin; holding an illusion over a distance is harder. Charles just nods absently, now trying to find the perfect pair of pants.

He wears his lucky socks too, just in case.

 

Apparently sentimental choices in clothing actually do affect the outcomes of events, or Charles is a very good speaker. Or perhaps the presence of mutations and their effects on medicine and the projected future of mankind is just a particularly interesting subject. In any case, Charles concludes his speech to applause and plenty of people approaching him afterwards to ask questions. He even gets a few tentative overtures for possible research grants, and one solid job offer.

“It’s quite interesting.” Raven nods, obviously happy for him and visibly amused at the way Charles is almost bouncing as he walks. “They want me to study the effects of genes and how to specifically target certain parts of the DNA strand with medicine, real cutting-edge stuff. And it’s in New York! Practically our back yard.”

“So are you going to take it?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t want to seem too eager, so…”

“But are you going to take it?”

“Absolutely.”

*

Charles tries to be good, he really does, but when he’s particularly involved in a project things just happen. The default state for his telepathy is a low-level awareness, only enough to tell when somebody is nearby and pick up their general mood. Thoughts do leak through occasionally though, and after nearly a month working at Vision Inc. he knows that something is very wrong.

“It’s just—everybody is so quiet. Sometimes I think they don’t have wills of their own.” Which is ridiculous, of course, he implies with body language. Absurd.

“My quiet or your quiet?” Raven is perched on the long marble counter in the kitchen, an expensive feature their mother had installed when they were children.

“My quiet. They talk, they just don’t… They think, but…” Charles gestures, unable to put what he feels into words. “It’s strange.”

Raven shrugs. “Quit.”

“But the research we’re doing could really help people!” He paces, genuinely distressed. “I don’t believe that a little discomfort is worth losing that, or not being a part of it.”

“What do you want from me? Permission? You know I’ll support you whatever you do.” Acceptance brushes against his mind before Raven hugs him, a quick squeeze, and he feels better for it. She is comfortingly familiar. It grounds him.

“You’re right. Sorry, Raven, I know you dislike it when I, er, use you to reaffirm actions I’ve already decided to take.”

“You mean I hate it when you waffle.” Raven rolls her eyes. “Go on. Make your tea and brood a little. Come find me again when you’re better.”

“You know me too well.”

Raven flaps her hand at him, dismissive.

The ritual of making tea (Earl Grey, the good stuff) calms him enough for him to think as his hands move. He will stay at the company, there isn’t much of a question about that, but he also has to try and find out why the place is – muffled, might be a good word, since dead is too close to ominous foreshadowing for his taste. No need to tempt fate.

When he looks up into the reflection of himself in the kitchen window, his pupils are wide enough to eclipse the blue of his irises.

 

Darrick is the leading scientist on the R-16 project. He’s pudgy and short, but generally good-natured and understanding of all the quirks people stuck in their heads and cooped up in a lab twelve hours a day develop. Charles is nominally involved with R-16, in a sort of background way: he doesn’t actually know what the drug is supposed to do, only that it targets a certain part of the DNA strand. That in itself is a hard enough task to accomplish, given that much about the base code of the human body is still not understood.

Anyways. (He always does this, gets distracted by science or strangers’ thoughts, and is forever misplacing things or forgetting little tasks like washing the dishes. Being a telepath just makes it worse.)

Anyways, Charles has subtly modified his behavior to attract Darrick’s attention, working where the other man can see and making a point to discuss what breakthroughs he’s had, and now Darrick is inviting him for a bit of a working lunch.

They bring the unclassified paperwork with them to a deli outside of the research facilities, suffering through security checks good-naturedly by debating whether Byrne ought to have seen through Fischer’s strategy in the Game of the Century, and if it’s premature to name a chess match “Game of the Century” when less than a decade has passed since the game was played.

“Doctors,” a bored guard nods at them. “You’re fine. Have a nice lunch.”

Charles smiles back, putting just enough good humor in for it to be more than a token pretense of politeness.

“Thank you.”

Darrick is the one to suggest a little deli down the street, and Charles is happy to agree. It’s a quaint place, small round tables outside and a wooden sign over the polished counter containing the menu. Darrick orders something so large it doesn’t actually look edible; a human mouth surely can’t stretch that wide. Charles doesn’t say anything though, just orders a good beef sandwich and a lemonade. He feels like lemonade is a very American drink, something that fits in with the restaurant’s atmosphere.

They settle themselves outside in the shade of the building, pulling their chairs to the same half of the table and spreading papers out over space not taken up by their plates. Luckily the day isn’t too windy so no sheets go flying off with the breeze.

“The thing is,” Charles says around a mouthful of bread, “is that we don’t know enough about DNA to really isolate a complex sequence of genetic markers like we need to. We’re trying to build a bridge without all the foundations in, you know?”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Darrick sighs, and an image of dilated black eyes flash across his brain. Charles sits up a little straighter. “But the big cats want it done, and no researcher is going to convince them differently.”

“Bureaucrats, eh?” Charles smiles, mind quiet and focused, spread wide to receive any information Darrick can give him.

“Oh yeah,” Darrick says, mouth twisting wryly, but behind his eyes he’s awash with fear. “Bureaucrats and their bosses. The chain never ends.” Blonde hair, diamond necklace, full mouth. Nothing.

“But enough about that. You’re our most promising researcher. Tell me about that recent breakthrough with the viral therapy?”

This has never happened before. Charles grits his teeth and answers Darrick’s questions, turning over the possibilities. Perhaps the other man doesn’t remember, hasn’t seen more than those glimpses, a patched framework of a person. Or perhaps there’s something blocking him; he’s always known that there have to be more people than him and Raven who are different. Is it so difficult to think there are other telepaths as well?

But then why are they shielding Darrick? Why shield so many of the workers at Vision?

Mystery stories, he thinks, seem much more entertaining and transparent on paper. When you’re in the middle of one, it’s just bloody frustrating. Even worse, he doesn’t think this is the harmless kind of mystery, with the sneaking around in locked rooms and capering adventures – he has a feeling this is the kind of story that ends in blood and tears and pain, and knowing too much too late.

Maybe it’s time to use the other aspect of his power.

A decision like that will need Raven’s input though, so he completes his day normally and nods his customary goodbye to Steven of the afternoon shift (currently thinking of baseball) before getting in the car to drive home.

Raven isn’t in the house. Working late, Charles supposes. Waitressing does tend to pick up around this time. Fine. He’ll make dinner, take his mind off things.

Chopping vegetables is calming. The steady, repetitive motions require enough attention to allow Charles not to think of anything else, but not so much that he has to truly concentrate. Minutes pass by in an even march of cutting, washing, and stirring until the sky outside begins to darken, burst orange and blooming purple spreading across the sky. Even when he misses the scrape of the key in the lock he knows when Raven is home – her mind is a swirling cage of tired frustration.

“Idiot customers?” he asks, carrying a bowl of warm vegetable soup over to the dining table.

“God, yes!” Raven flops into a chair. She accepts the soup and the accompanying spoon with a smile of thanks, immediately placing it to her lips and drinking. “Mm, that’s good. No, it wasn’t that everyone was a dick tonight, which can happen, there was just this one bitch--”

“Raven—”

“No, seriously, she was a bitch, a bitch to the max, all like ‘oh can I have some water,’ ‘oh this glass didn’t come with a lemon, get me one with a lemon,’ ‘why isn’t my food here yet,’ ‘does your manager know about the level of service in this place, girl?’”

Charles winces.

“Right?” Raven spreads her hands wide. “And then, and then, after we did everything she asked, she didn’t even leave a tip! Total. Bitch.”

¬¬“While the sentiment may be true, I do wish you’d use more appropriate language.” Charles tries not to sound reproachful and mostly fails.

“Careful,” Raven snorts. “Your old man sensibilities are showing.”

“I am not an old fart,” Charles says in his most snobbish upper-class accent, grinning when Raven is surprised into laughing. “Surely it couldn’t be all bad, though?”

“Well, there was this very handsome man. Single.”

“Did you--?”

“Nah. He told me he was only in town for one night. I’m not that easy.”

Charles draws himself up. “There’s such a thing as too much information, Raven. Speaking of, after we finish dinner do you think you’ll be up for some decision-making about snooping?”

“Oh, is this for your mysteriously silent workplace?”

“Yes.” Charles ladles himself bowl of soup from the pot, carrying it carefully over to sit next to Raven. “I’ve tried listening,” he taps his temple to indicated exactly how he was listening, “but it’s like they’re being blocked, or don’t remember. I was wondering if…”

“If you should force them to tell you.”

“Yes.”

Raven puts her spoon down, clasps her hands together and places her elbows on the table. She’s frowning.

“I don’t know. We don’t even really know what we’re looking for, really, and messing with people’s free will is—eurgh. Plus your eyes get creepy and black.” She shoots an apologetic look at him. “Sorry, but it’s true.”

“But this may be really important; I think there’s something suspicious going on. Darrick, the head scientist on our project, is deathly afraid of one of the bureaucrats in charge of this whole thing.”

 _ _“_ You’re_ the one who taught me all about ethics and free will and all that. And who went through the whole guilt trip when you were a teenager when you figured out why people always did what you wanted until you learned to control it.”

“So you think I should—“

“So I think you should decide for yourself. Again.” At Charles’ sigh and furrowed eyebrows, she leans into him for a quick hug. “Hey. I think that if you think it’s important, you should. It’s not like you’re making them jump off a bridge or anything.”

“I’m glad to see that my lectures on the sanctity of the human mind and free will have left such an impact on your life, Raven.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.” Raven gathers up her spoon and bowl and places them in the sink. “I’m beat. Can you do the dishes tonight?”

“Hm? Oh yes, the dishes, of course. Good night, Raven.”

“Good night. Don’t forget to eat, and don’t brood!”

As always, Raven can make Charles smile.

“Promise,” he says.

 

The thing is, various workers at Vision Inc. _are_ afraid, almost terrified and vaguely confused. Most of them are people in positions of power. When another week of fruitless mental eavesdropping returns no results, Charles finally decides act.

“Darrick?” Charles knocks on his open office door. The other man is sitting behind his desk, round glasses low on the bridge of his nose, papers everywhere. “How do you feel about abandoning your responsibilities for an hour and joining me in escaping this place for lunch?”

“That sounds amazing.” Darrick sets down his pen and takes off his glasses as he stands, grinning. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to get out of here for a bit. Paperwork. Be glad you’re a researcher, Charles. It may be frustrating as hell, but at least it’s interesting.”

“Oh, I know. I’m a terribly lucky man.” He holds the door open for Darrick on the way out, self-taught manners ingrained. Guilt has a bit to do with it as well, already setting in at the thought of what he’s about to do to a man who, so far, has only been pleasant and helpful to Charles.

They decide once again to visit the deli across the street. (“It’s just so cheap, and their sandwiches are delicious.” “Oh no, I quite agree. Lead on.”) Charles orders tea this time, along with a chicken sandwich with mushrooms. Darrick, surprisingly, asks for a salad.

“Diet,” he says deprecatingly at Charles’ polite eyebrow raise. “Don’t want to get too fat for my office chair, eh?”

“That would be unfortunate,” Charles agrees. “Speaking of office chairs, did you see that monstrosity Gabriel was sitting in yesterday? Where did he even find an orange and brown plaid pattern, do you know?”

Small talk takes up enough time to get outside, and they sit at the same table. It’s starting to feel a little uncomfortable for Charles, who had already compromised a bit of moral high ground with the last lunch; this one, he’ll sacrifice it all. Darrick showing him pictures of his son and gesturing excitedly about how he’s starting to walk makes it about five hundred times worse.

Eventually during a break in their conversation Charles locks eyes with Darrick and concentrates.

_You want to talk with Charles about the woman who scares you. It’s fine, Charles already knows about him and shares your views, but you want to tell him everything you know, everything you feel about what makes you afraid of the woman with the black eyes._

“So what about Division, eh?” Darrick keeps his voice low, eyes darting around like people are spying on their conversation. “Don’t you ever feel like it’s a bit much, all that secret society and containment stuff? Reminds you of, well, the Nazis a little bit?”

“I’d like to think we aren’t as bad as the Nazis,” Charles murmurs back, finally picking up something from Darrick’s thoughts. He’s already tucked away the word Division, but elaboration would be helpful. It’s like when he’s actively thinking about it the information is there, but all his knowledge is secondhand and probably not particularly reliable. He does genuinely believe they’re helping people, that the research they are doing will save lives.

“Yes, but using humans, even if they are volunteers.” Darrick grimaces, “I don’t particularly like to dwell on it.”

Human experimentation. That never leads to anything good. But the woman, the one with the eyes like Charles when he uses his power…

“Personally I think the worst bit is the woman in charge,” Charles leans forward. “Don’t you think there’s something… off about her?”

“You mean she can Push you into doing anything she likes?” Charles can hear the capitalized “p” in Darrick’s mind, drowning in a shiver of fear. “God, yes. She’s terrifying. They all are, really. I wish that I’d meet a nice Division agent, just once.”

“I don’t think they have any,” Charles says, playing along. He gets a full image of the blonde woman this time, dressed impeccably in a low-cut blouse and pencil skirt. Her eyes are blue usually, and cold as space. Then there are flashes of others: a man with a goatee and unusually pointed eyebrows, a handsome man in a white suit, a third in a purple fedora, and another with a thin mouth and calculating eyes.

“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” Charles suggests, reinforcing his words with his mind. _“Let’s forget we ever had this conversation. We’ve spent the last fifteen minutes discussing the merits of television cartoons.”_

Darrick blinks and looks confused for a moment before he sighs and shakes his head. “Really Charles, while anthropomorphic animals are entertaining, intelligence like that can’t be bred or forced.”

“But look at the animals in captivity,” Charles replies after an infinitesimal pause, trying to catch up with whatever Darrick’s mind has made up to fill the last fifteen minutes of his life. “They require jobs just as humans do. Surely when we isolate parts of the genome—“

“You can’t be serious. Are you?”

“No, not particularly. It is rather fun to argue though, isn’t it?”

A laugh. “I suppose so.” He checks his watch. “Ah, back to work. The daily grind. If I suddenly disappear from the face of the earth, don’t look for me—I’ll just have run away to Canada to escape all my paperwork.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He feels a brief sense of foreboding, though. Even if Darrick doesn’t remember what they were truly talking about, his unconscious mind knows there’s danger. If any of the people Charles has glimpsed in Darrick’s mind ever find out about their chat the other scientist may well disappear.

But it won’t be to Canada, and it won’t be to escape his paperwork.

 

 

ii.

_The world is made up of fire and screaming, a tabletop looming up at eye-height , pain and fear and--_

_”No, please, I’ll be good, I won’t use it, I swear--_

_”Demon! Get out—“_

__Mama!”_ _

_No, no, nononono it_ hurts--

“Raven!”

Charles sits up gasping in his bed, shoves the covers off blindly and races for the door. Bursting into Raven’s room doesn’t wake her up, so he grabs hold of a flailing hand and shakes her hard by the shoulder.

“Raven, wake up!”

“No!” Raven cries out, jackknifing up off the mattress with an abruptness that takes Charles by surprise. Their foreheads knock together. “Ow—Charles?”

“You were dreaming,” Charles says. He’s hovering over her, hands light on her upper arms in a kind of half-embrace. “Broadcasting, really, and it bled over—are you all right?”

Raven’s breathing is starting to calm now, and she’s no longer quite so wild-eyed. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. Thanks for, you know. Coming in.”

Charles hugs her, one arm around her shoulders and squeezing. “It’s no problem,” he assures her. “I know you’d do the same for me.”

They sit in silence for a while, watching dust motes glint silver in the moonlight spilling in from a gap in the curtains. Raven is warm against Charles’ side, pressed full-length against him as if she can leech peace of mind from his skin.

Eventually he makes a move to get up. Raven tightens her hold around his waist.

“Stay?”

Charles looks down at her, natural auburn hair short at the nape of her neck, skin pitted and twisted with scar tissue, and thinks he’s never seen anything so fragilely beautiful. He presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Of course. Scoot over, I’m cold.”

“You should have put on a shirt, then,” Raven teases, voice soft. She does slide over on the bed though, holding the covers open, and Charles makes himself comfortable. Although the mattress is more than big enough for two, they cuddle up close: Charles’ arm is used to cushion Raven’s head and her arms are pulled up close between their torsos.

“And ruin my dramatic entrance?” He breathes in the smell of her hair, strawberry shampoo with a hint of fear-sweat just under the surface. “Never.”

“You are such a dork, Charles,” Raven mutters, eyes half-closed.

Charles doesn’t get a chance to reply before her mind slips into the soft static of a dreamless sleep. Instead, he lies awake stroking her hair until the arm supporting Raven’s head goes numb and he follows her into Morpheus’ welcoming arms.

 

He wakes up to bright hazel eyes, almost yellow in the morning light, gazing steadily into his own. As soon as he’s awake enough to do so he smiles a greeting.

“Get a good night’s rest?”

“Due to my knight in shirtless armor, yes.” Raven grins at him. Then, softer, “Thanks.”

“You know it was no trouble,” Charles says. He watches as Raven sits up, flexing his arm and suppressing a wince as the feeling starts to filter back into it. “How do you feel about pancakes for breakfast?”

“Will you not burn them this time?”

Charles draws himself up, mock-offended. “I’ll watch them very carefully,” he says. Then he gives Raven a little push, encouraging her to get out of the bed. “Go on, take a shower. I’ll see you down in the kitchen.”

She goes, sticking her tongue out at him.

“I better not see the fire department pulling up when I come out!” she calls.

Charles doesn’t dignify that with a response.

 

Breakfast, full of banter and good humor, fortifies him for work that day. He has big plans, ambitious plans, plans that will finally bring him into contact with Division after weeks of ignorance and inactivity.

They are this: pay a visit to the Vision executives, and then get them to put him in touch with Division.

All right, he admits to himself. They aren’t very grand plans. But they should be effective, and that’s what matters.

He chooses just before the lunch break to ambush a man in a blue suit with a horrible argyle-pattern tie, and whose mind proclaims to be vice-president of the company. The second-in-commands, Charles finds, are usually the ones who know the most about everything. Everybody reports up to them, and they filter out the irrelevant detail (which can be so very useful) for the ones in charge. Therefore it should be this man – Jordan – who holds the information Charles so badly needs.

Jordan doesn’t. In fact, according to him, nobody does. Division agents appear when and where they will; they call to inform the company from scrambled numbers, Push people into not asking questions, arrive and leave in some unknown fashion. Division, it seems, comes to Vision, not the other way around.

Charles clenches his jaw.

“Thank you,” he says politely, voice fairly shivering with power. He knows his eyes are nearly covered in black. “You never saw me today, and we never had this conversation. In fact, you just walked out of your office on your way to lunch.”

He leaves before he does something rash, like tells the man that he hates his tie and should burn it.

After that he thinks that part Vision must be funded by Division, somehow, or perhaps some other shadowy program, and that the money trail will lead him to a clue. For days he dreams up elaborate schemes on how to get into the company at night, or perhaps find relevant files and copy them and trace them to their source, or even to hack into the computer records. In the end Raven brings him back to reality with a skeptical question.

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” she says, eyebrows raised. “I mean, even if you found the records you needed, how would you know?”

“The hours I spent in the library trawling through obscure texts must count for something,” Charles says stiffly.

“No, I mean can you even read legal-ese? Is that even a word?”

“Not a word,” Charles replies quickly. Then, with a sigh, “No.”

It’s true. Even if he finds the documents he needs, he likely won’t recognize their importance. And he certainly doesn’t actually know how to hack into computerized records, or exactly how the filing system works at Vision Inc. The Dewey system he can handle; concentrated corporate incompetence, on the other hand, is quite another thing.

More days pass. Charles tries to think up other ways to find Division.

He questions other people.

He theorizes with Raven.

He talks to Darrick again.

He goes to the library. (Yes, he knows that’s a long shot. It’s still worth a try. He knows libraries.)

Nothing.

Nothing _._

__Nothing_._

Just when he’s seriously beginning to contemplate buying a plane ticket and conning his way into the White House or the FBI or the CIA or some other secret government agency to have a telepathy-assisted chat, the mountain comes to Muhammad.

 

He’s been surly for days. Raven has taken to leaving him toast and tea packets in the morning and going to work early, although she also takes the time to read him Hemmingway in the evenings, his head on her lap and her hand massaging the headache out of his scalp.

This morning there’s a packet of grape jelly sitting on the counter instead of the normal knife and butter stick, and Charles has to smile. Raven always teases him about his taste in artificial flavors, namely the love he has for grape and cherry. Those are the best kind of arguments: the ones that don’t mean anything, that are more an expression of shared experiences than any sort of disagreement.

So he goes to work with a lighter heart, and doesn’t think of anything immediately threatening when Darrick waves him over as soon as he gets through the door.

“Charles,” the other man says, voice low, eyes darting around the room. “News from the men who sign our paychecks, so pay attention. We’re getting visitors. Be polite and stay out of their way, okay?”

“What? They’re going to be looking at our research, aren’t they?” Vision gets plenty of visitors wanting to see what they do and perhaps offer some contracts. The lab Charles works in gets its fair share of interested parties, and he’s always happy to show them around. Nobody has ever objected before. “You know nobody knows more about what we’re working on better than I do. And I’m a good tour guide.”

“Trust me, these aren’t the usual types of cats.” Darrick has drawn them to a side wall so that they’re almost huddled in a corner. “You don’t want to catch their attention. They’re cold. You hear stories.”

Charles allows himself to reach out, and gets the same image he received weeks ago at lunch: blonde hair, cold eyes, and pupils that swallowed the iris.

“Stories?”

“Stories,” Darrick says with a finality that Charles decides not to push. He has what he needs to know, anyways.

Division is coming.

“All right,” he says, placating. “Fine, I’ll stay out of the way. But you can’t expect me not to lurk around and be curious, not after telling me about these mysterious ‘stories.’”

Darrick relaxes. “I wouldn’t dream of telling a scientist not to investigate something,” he says. “Just be discreet about it, eh?”

“Scout’s honor.” Charles holds up a hand.

“You’re doing the sign wrong,” Darrick says.

“Oh. Well, the sentiment is there!”

 

They arrive just after lunch, when half the researchers are still gone. The cold man is first – “Shaw,” he introduces himself. “Sebastian Shaw. Miss Frost,” he gestures at the other telepath. “And our associate, Mr. Lehnsherr.” This is the man with the hats, although he’s not wearing one now.

Charles keeps his head down as they walk around. Lehnsherr wanders away from the other two, caressing the air above the microscopes and peering into them with idle interest. Eventually he works his way to the table next to Charles, who pretends to be absolutely absorbed in the experiment he’s running. In reality all he needs to do and let it sit for thirty minutes and then record the results, but this way he can observe Lehnsherr. Covertly.

Plus it’ll hide his eyes when he brings a hand up to scratch the side of his face and presses two fingers to his temple.

For a second Charles barely feels anything. Then he’s swamped.

Lehnsherr’s -- Erik, his name is Erik -- mind is like an old castle fallen into disrepair. In the past it must have been filled with gold and tapestries, flags flying high from the ramparts, stones sharp and clean. Now it feels like an invading army had marched through and ransacked the place, throwing organized memories to the floor and tearing goods from their places of presentation, tracking muck into the corridors and leaving their own refuse behind. Deep inside though, in the throne room, a bright presence lurks, hiding and biding its time.

Charles comes back to himself, breathing deeply. There’s a hand on his arm, and when he looks up it’s into slate grey eyes.

“Are you all right?” Erik – no, Lehnsherr, he must call the man Lehnsherr – has a polyglot’s accent, vaguely British and shadowed with German, all European. It makes him feel at home.

Charles can feel the heat of him all along his side even though they’re a good half-foot away from each other.

“You seem… troubled.”

“Just—just remembered something,” Charles stammers. God, get your head together! he thinks to himself. Just because the man may have the most beautiful mind you’ve ever touched isn’t a reason to becoming a gibbering wreck. He slows his breathing, straightens from where he’d hunched over to clutch at the tabletop.

“Charles Xavier.” Lehnsherr has a firm handshake. “And do you have a first name, Mr. Lehnsherr?” He’s flirting a little, can’t help it, but at least the other man isn’t likely to notice.

“Erik.”

Charles beams. “Hello, Erik.”

A moment passes where they stare at each other awkwardly, hands still clasped. Then Charles pulls back and runs a hand through his hair.

“I noticed you looking through the microscopes. Are you interested in genetics, Erik?”

“A passing curiosity.” Erik’s voice is dry. “To be honest, I was more admiring the construction of the microscopes themselves. Engineer, you see.”

“Oh.” Charles blinks. He’d been so occupied by the shape and feel of the other man’s mind that he’d forgotten to actually search for information about Division. “Have you seen these models before, then? Or do you have a different focus?”

He brushes against Erik’s mind again, unable to help himself. It’s clouded, a thick film of foreign thoughts cast over the truer ones belonging to Erik, and Charles abruptly understands that Emma has been Pushing him. Manipulating his thoughts on such a large scale that the damage is clearly visible, all over Erik’s mental landscape. And it’s been going on for a long time.

Rage swells in his body, in his head, so that all he can hear is the pounding of his own heart and the gritty slide of teeth as he clenches his jaw, and as he breathes in his mind swirls in readiness, preparing to reach out of swamp the other who has abused their power so, and he winds himself tighter, and—

There is a feeling like shattering crystal, a purely mental sound that stops him in his tracks.

After a moment’s shock Charles realizes that he can’t read anybody’s mind, can’t feel them except as there, registered presence, and his eyes widen and—

“Xavier?”

Suddenly it’s over, the hundred everyday thoughts of laundry and leaving the stove on and grocery lists and paperwork rushing in to fill the gap. Erik is staring at him.

“Your eyes,” he says, quiet.

“My—oh, no.”

They stand, Erik’s hand tight on Charles’ upper arm. He smiles a slow smile. Charles isn’t reassured: all that’s revealed are teeth.

“Don’t worry,” the other man murmurs. “I won’t tell. Come visit me sometime.” He scribbles something on a loose piece of paper.

Charles watches him walk away, dazed. When he rejoins Frost and Shaw – who are just leaving Darrick’s company – he speaks to them, voice low. Frost flicks a glance over. Her eyes are black.

Erik winks at him before the three of them disappear.

 

Waiting until he gets home to look at what Erik writes on the paper is possibly the single most difficult task Charles has had in his entire life. The folded-up message feels like it’s burning a hole in the cotton of his trouser pocket, the flat weight a reminder that Division is real, that Charles’ suspicions have proven correct, that all his persistence and Pushing and unethical reading and manipulating of minds hasn’t been in vain.

“So what do you think of our mysterious overlords?” Darrick strides over to him as soon as the Division agents are gone. “And don’t even try to deny you were fishing, I saw you with Lehnsherr.”

According to Darrick’s mind, he and Shaw talked business about nothing much, mostly how quickly research on the R-16 drug was progressing. The oily presence of altered memories is light: a blurring of anxiety here, a loosening of inhibitions there, just enough to keep Darrick working on the project and to not report Division to the authorities.

“Just asking what he did.”

“And?”

“Engineer, apparently.”

“Hm.” Darrick nods, obviously not particularly curious. “Good profession. I’ve got to go get reports done. Your petri dishes are open, by the way.”

“Oh!” In the time Charles goes to check his experiment (too long exposed to the air, he has to scrap it and start again) Darrick disappears into his office. That’s fine; Charles would feel vaguely unsettled too, he’s sure, if people messed about in his memories.

The rest of the day passes by excruciatingly slowly and lighting quick by turns. One minute he’s contemplating the set of Erik’s mouth when he tells Charles he won’t turn him in, trying to judge how truthful the other man was, and the next time he looks at the clock fifteen minutes have passed. Other times he’s writing out an experiment he’s going to run in his laboratory notebook, checking the clock after each line, only to find that the minute hand hasn’t even moved. It’s torture.

Raven is already home when he arrives, left hand pushed compulsively into his pocket and fingering the note folded within.

“You’re in a tizzy,” she says, and blinks at him.

“Raven!” Charles pulls out the note and waves it about, excited. “Raven, I have a breakthrough!”

“A breakdown, more like,” Raven says. But she puts down the book she’s reading – a novel, he glimpses from her mind – and walks over.

“All right, what’s your amazing breakthrough?”

“This!” Charles unfolds the paper in his hand almost reverently. In a slanted hand is written: SQUANKIN. MONSON, ME. 04460. I’LL BE WAITING.

Raven blinks.

“Is that a date?” she says. “Did you get propositioned with an address instead of a phone number?”

“No!” Charles is scandalized. “No, this is from a man named Erik.” Raven’s wide eyes silently repeat her question. Charles continues on, ignoring her. “He’s a Division agent that visited at work today.”

“So, a proposition from a man.” Raven’s tone is facetious. “Was he tall? Dark? Handsome?”

That makes Charles blush and huff, finally calming down so that he stops vibrating with pent-up excitement.

“How would I know?” he says, sulky. “Your taste in men is a mystery.”

“Oh my god,” Raven says. “You did, you totally did. You thought he was handsome. You’re fraternizing with the enemy!”

“What – I am not! He grabbed my arm and saw my eyes, that’s all!”

“He saw – you’re going to have to sit down and tell me the whole story.” She leads him back into the hall and makes him take off his jacket, which of course he forgot to do when he came rushing in flush with success.

“All right,” she says when they’re situated comfortably on the couch. Charles has a sandwich in hand, Raven having saved it for him from when she was making her own dinner. “Tell me.”

He does. He explains how Darrick pulled him aside, what each agent looks like. Raven Shifts herself into all of them, Charles directing her to make the nose a bit more pointy, no, his mouth was thinner, her hair more blonde. He tells her how he really did resolve to be inconspicuous when he was scanning the Division agents’ minds, but then Erik came wandering over and happened to glance at his eyes, and then the other man grabbed his arm and pulled in close and murmured that he wouldn’t turn rat him out in Charles’ ear.

¬“I’m inclined to trust him,” Charles finishes. “You didn’t feel how hard he was fighting the memory overlay. He’ll break free of it within the month, I know it.”

“But you didn’t actually read anything more off him?” Raven asks. “Nothing about Division or where they are or anything?”

“Er. No.” Charles looks down. “I was… a bit preoccupied. Erm.”

“You always did fall hard, and for the impossible ones. I remember Janet Kilsman in the third grade—”

“Don’t talk about that, please.”

“You realize sodomy is illegal.” Raven sounds like they’re talking about the weather, or what to buy for groceries that week. Charles nearly chokes on his bite of sandwich.

“Raven!”

“What? It’s true. Just, you know, looking out for your best interests.”

“I notice you didn’t say anything about his working for Division. Ah, not that I’m agreeing with your assessment of my attraction, that is.”

“Give it up, Charles. I can see right through you.”

“I met the man for five minutes!”

“You accepted me in seconds,” Raven points out. “And you love me, don’t deny it.”

“That’s different, you’re my sister—”

“So you do admit that your feelings for this Erik cat aren’t platonic!”

”Raven.”

Raven opens her mouth to tease Charles some more, sees the look on his face, and closes it.

“Fine,” she huffs, crossing her arms and slouching back into the couch cushions. “It’s a good thing when you can laugh at yourself, you know.”

“That wasn’t me laughing at myself,” Charles says. “That was you laughing at me.”

Raven rolls her eyes. Not for the first time does Charles think that she does so an inordinate amount around him.

“It’s because you’re lame,” she says. “Lame and lovesick. Stop fondling the note.”

Charles looks down. His fingers are compulsively smoothing over Erik’s message, sliding over creases folded into the paper and tracing over sharp, slanted pen strokes.

“Oh,” he says, and lifts his hands. “Yes. We’ll have to find out where this is.”

“Em Ee,” Raven reads. “Maine.”

“Quite right.” Charles gives her an approving nod and rises to pull an atlas from the bookshelves lining the walls of the study, counting spines until he reaches what he’s looking for. Raven shifts as he comes back to the couch, moving close enough to lean against his side as he flips through the table of contents.

“There.” She stops him. “Maine. Page seventy-three.”

“And the area code…”

“Oh-oh-four-six-oh.”

They search long enough for Charles to get up and make two cups of tea: one for himself, another with added honey and sugar for Raven.

“I don’t think this is a real town,” she says finally, arching her back and rolling her neck to work out the kinks. “Are you sure this guy wasn’t just yanking your chain?”

“Erik wouldn’t do that.” Charles frowns.

“Honestly. You interacted for five minutes.”

“Erik wouldn’t do that,” Charles repeats.

“You sounds like a lovesick _child_ ,” Raven snaps. “Be realistic! He’s on the _opposite side_. That means he doesn’t have to play nice with you.”

“I think I know him better than you. I’ve been inside his mind; a person can’t hide things from me like that.”

“Don’t I know it.” Raven stands, shoulders stiff, hands fisted at her sides. “I’m going to bed. Don’t try to follow me and apologize.”

“Why would I apologize?” Charles says before he can think. Then: “Raven, no, wait, I’m sorry—”

“Shut up. And just because you can see inside someone doesn’t mean you understand them, as you so aptly demonstrated just now.”

The study door slams on her way out. Charles, still sitting with his hand out in a mute appeal, sighs.

“I really am sorry,” he says to an empty room. The words sound flat.

When he goes to get ready for bed himself, he leaves the note and the book abandoned on the table.

 

*

Charles doesn’t sleep that night. Every time he tries a crushing sense of _alone_ swamps him, a wave that drowns him even as his skin bubbles and peels from invisible flames. Usually when Raven has nightmares he bursts into her room to wake her up, but she doesn’t want to see him; going in there would only make things worse. So he tries to think soothing thoughts at her, unfurling that bit of his mind that becomes active when he pushes into people’s minds. He’s never not used it as a compulsion, and never for such an unspecific purpose as just sending general calm feelings, but it seems to work. Raven’s sleep eases, dreams morphing to become more mundane.

Charles stays awake until the sky outside starts to lighten, sending goodwill and soothing thoughts to a mind three rooms away.

In the morning he goes for a run and then drinks two cups of coffee – vile stuff, but he needs the caffeine – and drives to work with his hands shaking slightly on the wheel. He has to wait an hour to be able to pipet with any sort of accuracy, and his handwriting is even more illegible than usual.

“Go home early,” Tamford, the man who works in the lab adjoining his, tells him. “You look dead on your feet.”

“That bad?”

“Racoon.” The other man nods solemnly.

“I suppose,” Charles sighs.

He still spends another hour finishing up his experiment and scribbling ideas in his notebook. And if some notations are about Erik and ideas for helping him break free of the compulsion Emma placed on his mind, well, who can blame him?

 

The house is quiet, echoingly empty. Charles falls into bed almost fully dressed and passes out pretty much as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He dreams that he’s six again, before he meets Raven, and it’s like he’s alone in the house. There are no sleeping minds within the rooms, not even his mother’s, but when he goes to look for her she is lying peacefully in bed. Her face is slack.

“Mother?” Charles says. It comes out quiet enough for him to clear his throat and try again. “Mother?”

Mother’s eyes open slowly, so slowly, lashes sweeping upwards in a river of blurred gold, light gleaming off revealed eyeballs. She sits up.

“Mother?” Charles’ voice is high and frightened. He can’t feel her, not at all. It’s as if she isn’t even alive.

“You,” she says, and the worst thing about it is that she doesn’t even sound upset. She doesn’t sound like anything. “You did this, Charles. You wiped me clean.”

“I didn’t, mother, I swear, I never, I just wanted some lemonade and couldn’t reach the shelves, I promise I’ll never do it again, I’m sorry—”

“I’m dead, you know,” she says, eyes unblinking. “You can feel it. I’m cold.”

And Charles doesn’t want to but he can’t stop himself: he walks forward and looks up into empty eyes and reaches out a hand to touch the too-white skin of his mother’s wrist and _no matter how hard he tries he can’t feel her mind_ \--

And he falls off the bed, tangled hopelessly in the sheets.

He swallows repeatedly as he thrashes his way free. His throat feels raw like he’s been screaming, but he knows that can’t be true; he trained himself long ago to stay silent in the face of nightmares. Being unable to sleep because of terrors not his own was horrible for a young boy, but waking others up with terrified cries just made it worse.

He still feels shaky when he pads downstairs for a late dinner. Anything past eight isn’t entirely respectable, he feels. Unless it’s a party. Parties are the exception.

“Raven,” he says in mild surprise. She’s sitting cross-legged on an armless wooden kitchen chair, a leather-bound copy of Frankenstein lying open on the table in front of her. “How was work today?”

“Fine.” She doesn’t look up from her book.

“I, ah, wanted to apologize—”

“Save it,” Raven says. She’s glaring at her book, shoulders hunched. “Give me a couple of days. And drink something warm, you sound horrible.”

The chair makes a scraping noise against the hardwood floors as Raven uncrosses her legs and stands, cradling the book in both hands. She leaves Charles to push it in after she leaves.

 

Three days pass. Charles and Raven are civil to each other, although much cooler than normal. They still do each other little favors around the house, habits so ingrained that even an angry silence between them can’t break the routine. Raven still cooks most of Charles’ meals, even as he cleans her room and does the dishes. She returns his keys in the foyer where they belong when she finds them in strange places (in the bathroom, or by the kitchen sink) while Charles maintains the grocery list and goes shopping.

On the fourth day, their schedules once again coincide around dinnertime.

“Here, let me do that,” Charles says as Raven reaches for a spatula, balancing a pot lid and two bowls with her other arm. He pulls open a drawer and hands over the cooking implement. “Er, when you’re finished, do you think we can talk?”

Raven nods.

“Thank you.” He retreats to the table and a sheaf of notes, arrows crossing the papers every-which-way and scribbles in the margins. They’re ideas for training his power and improving both their control. The two of them are going to need it, Charles thinks, if they are going to get anywhere near Division.

Dinner is consumed in silence, but it’s already a more comfortable silence than what has been between them the past few days. When both of them scrape their bowls clean and put them in the sink, Charles steps forward to hug Raven, tentative.

“Forgive me?” he murmurs into her hair. He misses this, their closeness. Raven is pretty much his sole provider of any physical contact and he’s used to a touch on the arm, quick brushes of his mind against hers, their sides pressing together as they curl up together on the couch with a book. His sister is _comforting_ , familiar and grounding.

“Don’t do it again,” Raven says, muffled into his shirt. She’s hugging him back, arms tight around his waist.

“I know I can be a bit of a prat—”

“Oblivious, too.”

“But I’ll try. And I’ll thank you not to point out my flaws with such glee, dear sister.”

“It’s only because you make it so easy.” Raven lifts her head to smile at him, wicked humor softened by forgiveness, eyes warm. Charles has to smile back.

 

Time after that goes by quickly. They find Squankin (“You mean it’s a _pond_ , not a town? Oh my god, that’s just—I don’t even know. A pond. Christ, Charles.”) and realize that it’s in the middle of nowhere (“Well naturally, Raven, it’s probably a secret base.” “You’ve watched too many spy movies, Charles.”) and decide that they need to scope the place out.

“Do you think you can shift into somebody inconspicuous? Preferably male,” Charles adds. “Er, you can imitate the body language of a man, can’t you?”

“I can imitate _you_ , which is close enough.” Raven moves, spreads her legs wider as she sits and slouches a little, arms thrown casually over the back of the couch. Charles blinks, looks down at the angle of his own legs and then over at the position of his hands, elbows, wrists, and laughs.

“Uncanny,” he compliments, sitting up straight and grinning. “I don’t suppose you could incorporate some other people’s mannerisms? We don’t want to be clones, after all.”

“Twins would be interesting, though.” Raven morphs into himself, a mirror image. “Don’t you think?”

His voice reflected back at him, and it would be unsettling if they hadn’t done this so much as children, playing pranks on his mother and the household staff.

“Too much handsomeness in one place,” he retorts.

“You wish.” But she ripples back into her own form. “But yeah, I see plenty of men. Usually sitting or walking, but it’s enough to get by. We should go to the park. I can people-watch and you can work on that, that mind-radio thing you think you can do.”

“Well it stands to reason that if I can both read minds and impose thoughts upon them, I should also be able to merely project words without any impulses attached—”

“No science speak, please.” Raven raises her hands. “You figure it out and it’s good enough for me.”

“Your lack of curiosity is astonishing.”

“There’s curious and masochistic. Listening to you hypothesize about your powers and ‘the amazing adaptability of the human mind’ is definitely masochism.”

“Hmph. Philistine.”

“Old fart.”

“Brat.”

 

They do visit the park: that weekend, in fact. Raven walks out in her normal form, just a bit of cosmetic changes to her face, and sits primly on a bench in the shade next to Charles. To anybody walking by (and there are many, this being a popular place) the two of them are perfectly normal, friends out to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

 _Man on the left, sweatshirt and those sandals, what are they called—thongs?_ Charles thinks at Raven. After some trial an error, he finds that sending thoughts via telepathy is easy. It is, however, pushing thoughts out of his head and into another’s, and so dilates his pupils. A woman walking by gives a double-take, noticing Charles’ eyes, but he blurs her sight and she convinces herself it was a trick of the light.

Raven glances over at the man Charles pointed out and shifts into a perfect copy, right down to the frayed cuffs on his jeans. She changes the way she sits too, into a loose-boned sprawl that fits her visual persona just right.

This time multiple people notice. Panic, incredulity, fear; they give minds sharp edges, make them slippery, harder to grasp and to hold. Charles squints, forehead furrowing, but manages to plant an illusion behind the eyes of those who notice his sister’s metamorphosis.

They play this game for nearly an hour, Raven changing from well-dressed businessmen to mothers out for a jog to young men on dates, even to an adolescent and an old woman with a cane. Charles discovers that the trick to creating a strong illusion is to let the brain fool _itself_ , to supply it with a reasonable alternative to what a person _knows_ can’t be true and let the rest just play out. In some people this is harder; they are more willing to believe, to be flexible. Charles thinks that Division will be a bit like that: rigid in some ways, but more adaptable than people who don’t know about those with special abilities.

When Charles starts developing a headache and Raven gets hungry, they call it a day. Amazing powers they may have, but it still takes a toll on their bodies. Raven has to eat to expend energy; Charles has to focus to overwhelm other people’s wills and supplant their perceived reality with his own version. Everything takes effort.

That being said, though, soon they ought to be proficient enough to go to Maine. To scope out Division.

To rescue Erik.

 

 

iii.

Maine is warmer than expected, although Charles is sure that soon sub-zero temperatures will start to creep in at night. Squankin is exactly as out of the way as they thought: at least a day’s drive from the nearest town (which is more of a store and gas station than anything else, a pit-stop).

“I think I see a flaw in our plan,” Raven announces. She has her feet up on the dashboard, slouched low in the car’s leather seat.

“What?” Charles doesn’t take his eyes off the road.

“We practiced blending in, _but there’s nobody to blend in with here_.” She curls her legs in and sits up with a huff. “Who even lives this far away from civilization anyway?”

“People who keep secret bases, perhaps,” Charles suggests dryly. His temper is a bit short after being stuck in a car for the past four days. Raven, after the first incident with a deer on the road, refused to take the wheel.

“Right, whatever. But when we drive up to Division’s oh-so-secret base, they’re going to know we don’t belong.”

“Which is what we’ve been practicing for, right? You shift into somebody innocuous, and I’ll blur their memories. Perhaps we can even pass as part of the organization come to visit.”

“Ah, is that why you got this car?” It’s a sleek thing, all black, very government-issue. Very expensive.

“Partially.” Charles admits. “Mostly because we’d have to sit in it for more than a week. You’d kill me in my sleep if it weren’t comfortable.”

“I really would,” Raven says with satisfaction.

Then they’re turning off onto a dirt road (“I think this may actually be an animal trail, Charles, if we run into another moose I’m blaming you”) which opens up into a – Charles can’t really classify it as a lawn, it’s so vast, no matter that the Westchester mansion’s grounds are larger. Clearing, then. In the middle of the clearing is a short, squat building that looks as if it’s built out of concrete. Further out he can just barely see the glimmer of water: Squankin Pond.

He casts his mind out, awareness like a web or a net, fine strands drifting through space. This trick is best for just general _awareness_ \-- he can’t do much more than register how many people are within his range when using it.

“They’re underground,” he says, startled. Then his brain catches up to his mouth. Of course they’re underground, the government takes satellite photos now.

It occurs to him to wonder whether Division is government funded.

“Do you think Division is government funded?”

“Oh, now you ask!” Raven says. “Did you plan this at all?”

“Yes, but I didn’t take that particular bit of information into account…”

“You mean you didn’t think of it.”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“Well, read somebody’s mind and find out. That’s what we’re here for anyway, right?”

“Of course.” Charles clears his throat. Raven can be much more practical than him, sometimes. Most of the time.

He reaches out again, slipping past the security guards and other people low on the food chain. They aren’t interested in who pays them or why, just the number on their paychecks at the end of each month. When he reaches a scientist, though, (a scientist, interesting) he feels something… trip.

That strange crystalline chiming sound breaks through him again, the same one that blocked him from reading Frost back at Vision, and he’s falling back into his own head with a gasp. For a minute he has to breathe hard through his nose, squint his eyes shut against the pain that’s spiking like a diamond drill through his brain.

“—arles?” He becomes aware of Raven saying. “Charles, are you okay?”

He tries to speak, to explain what happened, to say that they have to leave, but nothing comes out. All he can do is gulp air.

“Charles!”

And then suddenly he’s fine again, proper motor control over his body restored.

“Raven,” he gasps. “They know we’re here, their telepath is blocking me—you need to go.”

“What? Charles, what are you talking about?”

“They know we’re here! Leave! Go on foot, the forest, here, take this map—“ He pulls open the glove compartment, papers falling to the floor, and paws through them before grasping the state map of Maine and thrusting it at Raven. “You’re good at navigation, and right, money—“

All the bills he has, he digs out of his wallet, grabs Raven’s wrist and slaps them into her hand.

“You’re coming with me,” Raven says, voice small. “Right?”

“I can’t, Raven, I can’t, they know somebody was here, they know a _telepath_ was here, I have to stay or else they’ll look for you, they’ll look for both of us.”

“But—“

“No arguments! Just go. Listen to you big brother, okay?” He smiles his best smile at her. It probably isn’t very good, considering that look she gives him, not reassured at all. “I’ll get out eventually. Erik will help, I’m sure of it.”

“Erik,” Raven begins, fury crossing her face. “No, never mind. Charles, I can’t leave without you.”

“You have to.” He pulls her into a hug, arms desperately tight. She squeezes back just as much force. “You have to. Be safe.”

He kisses her on the forehead, hard, but his hands gentle on the sides of her face.

“Now go!” He can feel minds swarming upwards, pounding up stairs and ready to capture the intruder – to capture _him_ \-- and he pushes Raven again, out of the car until she starts to run. Then he closes the door and shuffles back the maps and starts the key in the ignition just at the first men exit the building, and slams the gear into drive and—

 _Of course they have telekinetics_ , he thinks, right before he passes out.

 

*

Charles swims up into consciousness slowly. Hearing filters in first, a slow steady beep that could either be a very quiet alarm clock or—

A heart monitor?

He blinks his eyes open. They feel heavy, eyelids weighted down, and when he reaches out with his mind everything is muffled. He can barely feel anything at all.

The beeps are slowly starting to speed up. He tries to sit, but can’t; there are restraints around his wrists, metal padded with leather, and straps running across his chest. Yanking at them has no effect except to make the heart monitors beep louder and faster.

“So you’re awake.”

Two people, Frost and Shaw, are standing over by the door. Shaw turns off the heart monitor as he approaches, tsk-ing.

“Such an unpleasant noise, isn’t it, Mr. Xavier?”

Charles keeps his mouth stubbornly shut.

“Hm. Uncooperative. No matter.” Shaw paces, steps slow and measured. Charles watches his with his eyes, keeping Frost in sight as well. Not that he can do much, strapped down as he is. “You came here in search of something, isn’t that right? At the mysterious behest of Mister Lehnsherr.”

Apparently Charles betrays some hint of surprise, because Shaw laughs, a full-throated sound of amusement. Frost smirks.

“You hide well, Mr. Xavier, but Erik is one of us. Yes,” and here his gaze becomes sharp, “us. There are special people out there, Mr. Xavier. Extraordinary people. You are one. Emma, here,” he gestures at Frost, “is another. The both of you are telepaths, for a given measure of telepath.”

He smiles.

“We call you Pushers.”

 

 

They talk at him a bit more, then leave him alone with a proposition. Join Division, they offer. Be what he was born to be, free to use his power, never having to hide and scrape like he did before. Meet others like himself.

He doesn’t speak to them at all.

As they exit Shaw flicks his fingers, and the straps and cuffs break with a sharp snap.

“Just a precaution,” Shaw tells him. “We’ve had people panic before.”

Charles wonders if one of those ‘before’ had been Erik. Erik, who Charles _knows_ doesn’t agree with Division, what they are doing, who may be the only ally he has in this place, who—

Is knocking on the door?

Even through the drugs pumping in his system are dulling his powers (and normally Charles would be fascinated by that, something to dampen only telepathy while leaving all other cognitive functions intact) he can feel the texture of Erik’s mind, a connection he immediately wants to cling to and not let go, one almost-clear image in a sea of drug-haze.

“Come,” he starts, voice hoarse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Come in!”

Erik enters slowly, almost hesitantly. Charles drinks him in with his eyes: the other man’s face looks harsher, mouth thinner and more set, grey eyes cold. His eyebrows still quirk up just a bit in the middle, like he perpetually wants to ask a question, and his hands are just as big and Charles remembers. He’s dressed down, in a black turtleneck and jeans.

“Charles,” Erik says, and Charles feels a surge of gratitude for the use of his first name.

“Erik,” he says back, warm, and slides off the medical cot. For a moment his knees threaten to give out, but he locks them with barely a wobble. This still has Erik stepping swiftly forward to support him with a hand under his arm, and Charles grips it briefly before letting go.

“I’m fine,” he shrugs. “Just a bit dizzy, but that’s past now.”

They stand close, awkward and silent, Charles looking up and Erik down in a strange repeat of their first meeting.

“I found you,” Charles ends up saying, gazing stupidly into Erik’s eyes.

Erik blinks and steps away, hand falling.

“So you did.”

Another pause.

“Did you tell them about, you know.” Charles gestures at his eyes. “Me?”

“I work for Division,” Erik says.

“But did you tell them?”

“…Not immediately. Although I should have,” he adds, flicking his eyes sideways. When Charles turns he sees a security camera’s red indication light blinking steadily in the dark of the corner of the ceiling. “Frost had to ask.”

Charles frowns at him. He wishes he could read Erik, that this drug isn’t constricting his world, shrinking his mind until it only fits inside his own head. He wonders how other people stand it.

“I’ve been offered a job,” Charles says.

“Yes, I know. I’m here to give you the tour.”

Before they leave Erik opens a drawer and slips something into his pocket. Charles can’t see what it is; Erik’s body is blocking his view and he’s still too fuzzy to read him properly. Not that he normally would read somebody’s mind without their permission, but he’s stuck in what Raven would dub “enemy territory” and can’t be too careful.

It’s a fairly comprehensive orientation, all things considered, just not very informative. They visit the commissary and break rooms, Erik walking quickly and silently down sterile halls. He pulls out a little black card out of his pocket (it’s attached to his belt, Charles can see) every time they need to go through a door, swiping it across a pad embedded in the wall. The doors then slide open accommodatingly. Five minutes are spent detailing what to do in case of a fire (get out) or an earthquake (take cover and pray) and Charles nods through it all, jumping when people brush by and he can’t reach out to touch their minds, to register their presence. He sticks close to Erik.

“This is your room,” Erik says, stopping by a door that looks exactly like the last dozen they passed by. “We’ll get you a nameplate later, if you choose to stay.”

“If I choose to stay, it will be because I have all the facts,” Charles says. He tries to read Erik’s body language but he’s completely impenetrable, shoulders back and hands still. The man’s face is utterly alien with just the background image of his mind present, like a flat reflection in the place of what should be a gloriously three-dimensional world. “What exactly does Division _do_ , Erik?”

“Classified,” Erik replies woodenly. “You’ll have to ask Shaw or Frost. I’m not cleared to impart that information.”

Charles almost startles when he steps closer, but holds his ground.

“Your arm?”

“What? Oh.” Charles presents himself, palm up, and Erik grips his arm gently. His hands are warm, large enough to span the entirety of Charles’ wrists, callus-rough on the sensitive skin right above his pulse point. It almost distracts him enough to miss what Erik pulls out of his pocket.

“What is that?”

His instinctive jerk away from the needle is stilled by Erik’s hand tightening, fingers pressing into tendons, and he winces. Erik makes a rough sound.

“I’m sorry.” Erik’s eyebrows are scrunched up when Charles lifts his eyes from the syringe to focus on his face, mouth set in an unhappy line. “But we have to. Powers are suppressed until you join.”

“And you don’t find that hypocritical at all? When, what was I told, I should be ‘free to be what I was meant to be?’”

“I don’t make the rules,” Erik says. “I just follow them.”

“And enforce them, it seems.” Charles tries not to sound bitter or accusing, but is pretty sure he fails.

“As you wish,” Erik says, and places the syringe between his teeth. His freed hand comes up to cup Charles’ elbow, thumb brushing the vein in the crook of his arm. Charles grits his teeth. It shouldn’t feel good, not when he knows what’s about to happen next.

Erik is professional about it at least, flicking his fingers and pressing down to figure out where to insert the needle, checking the syringe for air bubbles. He slides the needle in smoothly.

Charles looks away.

“Hold that.” Erik places a cotton swab on the needle mark, grasping Charles’ own hand and placing it on top of the little white ball. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep, it’ll get you through the worst part of the suppression.”

“What worst part of the suppression?” Charles asks, but Erik is already walking away. He stands there and stares at the other man’s retreating back until Erik turns the corner and moves out of sight.

 

Charles does fall asleep, eventually, after inspecting every inch of his new room. There isn’t much to see: a desk on the right by the door, bed against the wall, lighting set into the ceiling and a single rolling office chair. There a little bathroom with a sink, mirror, and toilet (no shower). And, of course, a security camera lurks up in corner, perpetually scanning and blinking its little red indication light. Like an eye.

By the time he strips out of his clothes and crawls under the covers his head is pounding. This must be the side effect of the suppression drug.

It takes him nearly an hour to fall asleep, and even then his slumber is restless. He dreams that he’s drowning, buried and suffocating in a sea of mothballs that then turn into real moths, fluttering and batting their wings against his skin, transporting him. A blonde woman walks out of them, actually, bright and shining like diamond; she sashays right up to him and places a crystalline finger against his lips.

 _What?_ he means to ask, but the words never leave his lips.

Her eyes are deep and dark and entirely black, an eerie reflection of his own the few times he’s seen himself in a mirror after, well. Just after. He can see himself in them.

 _“You came here to search for Erik, didn’t you,”_ she says without moving her lips. _”But you were also curious about your power. About others with similar powers. You wanted to join Division, just a little. Just because you’re curious. And you couldn’t resist. You accepted the offer.”_

Charles opens his mouth to deny it, but she’s already fading away, slowly becoming transparent.

 _ _”There’s a keycard on your dresser,”_ _ she whispers before she disappears completely. __”You know what it’s for.”__

Charles wakes up to almost pitch darkness, just the single red flashing light of the security camera in the corner, already almost familiar. He gropes for the bedside light and blinks rapidly as it clicks on, too bright.

Blank walls. He sighs. Shopping for decorations is a priority, as is – yes, there’s his suitcase – unpacking. And a shower. As he gathers a change of clothing and a towel, he contemplates how similar this is to living in the college dorms; once again he is low on the pecking order, eating cafeteria food, and bathing in a large room with a bunch of strangers.

Oh! He almost forgets his keycard-cum-badge, a fancy thing that can easily be attached to a belt loop, black and sleek with a shiny magnetic strip along the back. He wedges a foot in the door before it can click shut and lock him out, darting back inside to grab the little piece of plastic. Astonishing, how much of his life is now dependent on this one card.

The showers are empty, and he wonders fretfully exactly how long he slept. Unfortunately his watch is in his room on the desk where he’d left it the night before when preparing to go to sleep, and he didn’t think to check it when he woke. That’s the problem with living underground: a man’s sense of time becomes irreparably confused.

He showers quickly, spurred on by the thought of being late (although late to what he isn’t certain, not having been assigned any duties yet) and he dries off only haphazardly before jogging back to his room.

Erik is standing by his door, hands clasped behind his back, feet planted solidly at shoulder width in what Charles recognizes as parade rest. He loosens as soon as he sees Charles though, stepping forward with a tilt of the head.

“Morning.”

“Good morning!” Charles keeps his tone cheerful. Faced with Erik’s almost unnaturally smooth poise and perfectly coiffed hair, however, he’s suddenly acutely aware of his own heat flushed cheeks and still-damp curls. “Were you waiting for me? Um, come in.”

Erik gently takes the key card when Charles fumbles pulling it out of his pocket, trying to juggle both his clothing and wet towel, and swipes it smoothly along the designated authorization pad. He holds the door open too. Charles blushes.

“Thank you,” he says, ducking his head. Erik smiles at him, amused but not mocking. There’s something strange in his eyes. Almost sad.

“After you,” he says.

Charles dumps his dirty clothes on the bed and hangs his towel neatly on the bar set into the bathroom wall just for that purpose, quickly running a hand through his hair and checking the results in the mirror. Acceptable, even if one errant clump refuses to stay put and curls rebelliously over his forehead.

“What can I do for you, Erik?” Charles steps over to his desk, picking up his watch and fastening it around his wrist. Erik is standing over Charles’ suitcase, perfectly at ease at being caught out snooping. Charles supposes he can’t blame the man, the case was open and Erik didn’t touch anything.

“Orientation. You’re one of us now, you get the whole tour.”

“Yes, what exactly do you do here? You never said, before.”

“Still classified.” Erik turns and beckons, clearly expecting Charles to follow. “Come on. And here,” he hands the keycard back, “don’t forget this.”

“Ah. Thank you, my friend.”

Erik glances back, eyebrows raised. “Friend?”

“Well, yes. Aren’t you?”

“…Yes.”

 

They go eat breakfast first at Charles’ request. Apparently he didn’t wake up terribly late, but Erik is one of those disgustingly active people who loves to go for a run in the gym at ungodly hours of the morning, and so has already eaten.

“I could just get a bagel,” Charles offers. “Something we can take with us.”

“No, eat. I could do with a bit of juice myself.”

Charles nods, a bit doubtfully. But Erik fully lives up to his words; he fills a glass of orange juice (Charles gets tea) and sits at a mysteriously clear table.

“So who are all these people? Are they all, er, staff? Agents?” The room is filled with suits, mostly blue and black, with a surprisingly large contingent of people in lab coats. Many have strange bulges under their jackets, which Charles doesn’t quite understand until he catches a glimpse of leather and metal. Gun holsters?

“Security?” He adds, because surely they can’t all be, well, like James Bond…

“All of the above,” Erik says, sipping his orange juice. Charles notices and belatedly shoves some scrambled eggs with ketchup in his mouth, making a surprised sound.

“These are quite good,” he says, humming in pleasure. “Is all the food of this quality?”

“I’ve never had any complaints,” Erik says. He places his elbow on the table, hand cupping his chin as he looks at Charles. It’s frankly appraising.

Charles meets his eyes for a moment and almost gets lost in the steady grey of them.

“Well.” He breaks off, blinking and looking down to scrape up another forkful from his plate. “My compliments to the chef. I suppose it makes up for the lack of sunlight, at least.”

Erik snorts. “We do get to go outside,” he says. “This isn’t a prison. In fact, the lake is lovely to swim in. You can swim?”

Charles narrows his eyes. “You’re taking the mickey out, aren’t you? This is Maine. It must be freezing. And yes, I can swim.”

“Good.” Erik smiles his shark smile. “It builds character.”

Charles shakes his head, smiling. “I’m not going to chance it. You’re insane, clearly.” It’s a nice concluding statement, he thinks, for this very strange breakfast. One last forkful and lick of ketchup off the tines, and he’s ready for Erik’s tour.

“Shall we depart, then?”

Erik looks up almost guiltily from where he was staring at Charles’ chin. Charles wonders if he’s got a bit of food stuck, and resolves to swipe a napkin surreptitiously across his mouth when they pick up their dirty plates to dump on the revolving trays that take them back to the kitchens.

“Of course. Come, then.” Erik stands, courteous, waiting while Charles gathers his place and mug, and leads the way to the door. “Where would you like to start? The labs, I presume?”

“Actually, no.” Charles grins, sheepish. “Best if you show me all the other places first, most likely. I’ll spend the whole day in the labs if I’m allowed. It wouldn’t be good for, er, actual touring.”

“There actually isn’t much you didn’t get to see yesterday. We’re mostly a research facility, after all.”

“Oh? Do I get to know what you – no, we, research?”

Erik smirks, cutting him a sideways look. Charles reads oh, so you have teeth in his raised eyebrows.

“You do,” he says. “Here, swipe your card. You should be authorized, now.”

Charles waves his magnetized key in front of a pad, which beeps and obligingly turns from red to green. They enter into another white hallway, identical doors all the way down.

“We’re involved with all a manner of projects.” Erik walks briskly, just on the edge of comfortable for Charles. “Hank will be able to tell you more than I can. I’ve no interest in the biological components.”

“Hank?”

“Hank McCoy. He’s a genius, apparently, works—here.”

This door is the same as all the rest, except for a silver nameplate with “Hank McCoy” engraved on it. Erik knocks and then turns the knob.

“Apparently?” Charles asks, stepping inside.

He doesn’t hear Erik’s answer, if there is one; the room is huge, lab equipment in ordered rows filling up nearly half the space, the other half composed of an open concrete floor. If he squints he can see scorch marks.

“My god,” he says. “I—”

“Duck,” says Erik, and grabs at his arm. Charles turns enough to see something small and silver come flying at his head and thinks oh bugger, because he knows that he won’t be able to dodge in time, but at the last second the object is deflected with a sharp ping! and a sort of rainbow flash of light. Erik lowers his hand.

“Are you—Are you telekinetic?”

“Yes.” Erik glances at him. “Hank! Get out here, you’ve nearly killed your new coworker!”

“Sorry!” A faint voice comes from behind a table near the back and Charles spots a figure, tall and thin, scramble to its feet. When he comes closer Charles can see a nervous face, spectacles, and tousled hair. He’s so young.

He knows better than to say that, of course, given that he also skipped a few grades in school. Kids could be cruel when you were different.

“Wonderful to meet you.” Charles holds out a hand. “Charles Xavier.”

“Hank McCoy.” Hank’s grip is surprisingly firm. “Er, do you know where the—”

“Control your experiments next time,” Erik says, holding out the mangled scrap of metal that almost brained Charles just moments before. Hank flinches a little, and takes the little machine gently from Erik’s hand.

“Thank you, Erik,” Charles says, given that Hank is clearly intimidated. “What is this, by the way?”

He steps closer to Hank to have a look.

Hanks shoots another nervous glance towards Erik, who is most definitely looming. Charles rolls his eyes and claps him on the shoulder.

“You’ve delivered me safely, my friend. Now if you don’t mind, I’m just going to pump Hank here for information—as long as you wish to oblige, of course—” Hanks nods his head yes, “and it’s sure to be rather boring for you. Thank you for showing me around.”

Erik’s face doesn’t soften at his smile this time. He wonders if he’s upset the other man, shooing him away so quickly; it’s not that he doesn’t enjoy Erik’s company, it’s just that he’s excited to finally discover what exactly is going on here at Division, in these labs.

“Shall we meet up tomorrow for breakfast?” Charles offers. “Eight o’clock, say?”

Erik nods curtly and strides away. The only thing stopping Charles from calling him back for an apology is the hint of a smile around Erik’s eyes, just a little crinkling in the corners as Charles extends his invitation.

Hank sighs as soon as the door closes behind Erik as he exits, posture visibly loosening.

“Surely he isn’t that intimidating,” Charles says. Hank jumps again.

“Oh!” he says. “Well. Um. Yes. He kind of is. And, I mean, you touched him, on the shoulder, and he didn’t even say anything or glare or—are you a Pusher? Did you Push him?”

“I am a Pusher,” Charles admits. “But I certainly didn’t change the way Erik feels about me in any way. That would be terribly rude, not to mention morally—”

“Right.” Hank cuts him off, eyeing him strangely. “Charles Xavier, did you say? Were you recruited?”

“In a way, yes. Erik, Frost, and Shaw came to visit the labs where I worked previously and piqued my curiosity. So tell me—what is this little device that nearly took my head off?”

As Hank apologizes again, Charles smiles and shakes his head. He can tell that working here will be… different.

 

It turns out that Division really isn’t doing much of anything sinister at all. Charles spends the entire afternoon talking to Hank about his research and how Charles will be able to participate. Hank truly is a genius, in biology and engineering and a host of other fields, and so they work out a system where Charles will have a section of the lab for himself to run his experiments, which he’ll keep Hank informed about, and Hank will be freed up to focus on other things. Another bonus: they get to set their own hours.

Charles is in heaven. His own lab, his own experiments, his own research, and his own hours? It’s everything he’s ever wanted.

Hank also promises to fill him in on just exactly who works here as well as the culture and slang among the people with powers. Mutants, Hank says, and Charles has to agree.

“Mutants,” he tries out, lying on his back in bed. “Groovy.”

Tonight he’s determined to get enough sleep that he can get up early, although he hates mornings with the burning passion of a thousand suns. He wants to pump Erik for information on his telekinesis, and to ask the man about himself; Erik is a mystery, and Charles never could resist those.

A quick bounce gets him up and packing away his suitcase. Button-ups go in one drawer, sharing space with more casual tees. Pants are placed in the middle, underwear and socks on the bottom. He has to dig around for pajamas, loose striped ones, but when he puts them on they almost feel—uncomfortable. Not quite worn in yet.

He shrugs the feeling away. It’s probably just the strangeness that comes with living in any new place; he felt off the first week at Oxford, too, and it turned out to be nothing. He just needs time to adjust.

After he sets his alarm (when did that turn up?) he slides into bed.

Right before he drops off, he gets a feeling; a feeling like he’s forgotten something. For a second he almost gets up, but then he’s slipping off into the peace of a dreamless sleep.

 

Erik is already sitting in the commissary when Charles enters, toast and orange juice placed in front of him. Strangely, his is the only table with a single occupant. All the others have at least three people sitting together, some up to ten. Charles recalls how Hank seemed to think Erik was hugely intimidating and raises his eyebrows. Does everybody here think the same?

That must be exceedingly lonely.

"Good morning," he says, sliding into a seat across from Erik. The other man looks up from where he's buttering his toast -- without the use of his hands. "That's amazing! You're amazing. I don't suppose you can explain how your telekinesis works?"

"Good morning, Charles," Erik says. A corner of his mouth twitches. "Did you have fun with Hank yesterday?"

"What? Oh, yes, we had a very enlightening talk. I rather got the impression that he doesn't get out much, though."

"He doesn't."

Charles nods, stabbing a rogue piece of grapefruit on his tray. He's got that and oatmeal today, because he's feeling healthy. Also because Erik has barely anything on his plate; Charles feels awkward stuffing himself when Erik only has toast.

“He should. In fact, I’m already missing sunlight. Would you like to join me for, hm, an outdoor chess game? Do you play chess?”

“I do. And yes.”

“Wonderful! This afternoon?”

“I’ll find you.”

Charles beams, then realizes that he’s making a fool out of himself and tones down his smile.

“So about your telekinesis, er, Moving—”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“What about—”

“Charles.”

”Erik.”

“Charles.”

Charles drops it.

 

 

 

iv.

“You. Xavier.”

Charles looks up, startled, to see Frost standing with her hand on her hip. She’s pointing at him. At his questioning look, she sighs. He thinks she might also be rolling her eyes, but she’s wearing sunglasses. Inside. Underground.

“Yes, you, am I pointing at anybody else? Come with me. You’re finally going to be earning your keep.”

“Ms. Frost,” Charles begins, and is cut off with a sharp movement of Frost’s hand.

“No,” she says. “Come.”

Charles frowns but follows, staying silent; she is his boss, after all, and it wouldn't do to be rude. Not that she isn't fulfilling that type of behavior on her own.

It's a small, petty thought, and Charles is ashamed of himself. He can't quite squash it, though.

"May I ask where we're going?" Frost walks quickly, even in high-heels; perhaps especially in high heels. He has to trot to keep up.

"You're finally going to work as an agent. We're convincing a Senator to continue our funding."

Charles realizes immediately that this isn't the type of convincing that involves grant proposals and slide projector presentations. But if Emma is going, surely they don't need him.

He voices this speculation. Emma turns her head, tipping down her sunglasses with a perfectly manicured finger, and shoots him a coolly amused look.

"Smart," she says. "Then again, that is why Shaw wanted you. I'm just going to be backup this time. The heavy lifting is up to you, big boy."

Charles keeps his head high and stares her down, knowing that his pupils are jumping just the tiniest bit but keeping his power in check. She can’t reach him through her sunglasses. His face is warm.

“Cute.” She turns to swipe her card at a door Charles has never seen open before; it opens up into a garage, two dozen gleaming cars lurking in light and shadow. “Riptide!”

A man steps away from where he was leaning against a support pillar, suit bright white. Charles wonders how he didn’t notice him before.

“Riptide is a Mover,” Frost informs him. It’s obviously a code name, but Riptide doesn’t offer his real one and Charles respects his privacy by not asking.

Mover, Charles repeats to himself, and runs through the laundry list of powers Hank gave him around a week before. Telekinetics are called Movers; those who can use telepathy offensively, Pushers. Readers can, obviously, read thoughts, while Stitchers heal. Bleeders modify their voice to produce sonic blasts that can shatter glass, even kill (hence the name, because of the copious bleeding from the nose and ears). Supers have augmented strength. Shifters make illusions that fool human senses and electronic imaging equipment. Charles wonders how: perhaps they bend light…

In any case, those are the main categories of abilities. Mutants have varying degrees of any, and many mutants marry others who share their differences, so there is some mixing and matching of powers as well. Apparently, however, it’s rare to have a powerful mutant manifesting two kinds of skills. A mutant is either powerful and has one ability, or weaker with a variety. Charles wonders why and has already begun to hypothesize: it won’t do to conclude anything without experimental data, though, and that will be difficult to obtain. There aren’t many subjects lining up to be poked and prodded at.

And DNA mapping technology is still so very limited. Charles wishes, briefly (and not for the first time) that he lives fifty years into the future, where surely both technology and scientific knowledge will have progressed enormously.

“Pleased to meet you,” Charles says after a short pause. Riptide doesn’t offer a hand. Neither does Charles.

Riptide nods at him, and that seems to be that.

They drive in silence to an airstrip deeper in the woods, rather cleverly hidden: it’s pretty much just a large flat field of grass with a small plane nestled beside a grove of pine trees. Riptide moves up into the pilot seat -- ah, thinks Charles, he’s our pilot -- and Frost hands Charles a thick manila folder.

“Your contact,” she says. “Read up. We need him to give us more funding. I hear from Erik that you’re good at talking, so you should be able to do this.”

“Er, I’ll certainly try,” Charles says, taking the file. “Thank you.”

Charles follows proper air travel safety protocols as they take off, although of course in a little aircraft like this one there are no indication lights for when it’s safe to take off his seatbelt. He decides to just leave it on while he peruses the file Miss Frost gave him.

“The Secretary of Defense?” he says about two seconds later, after reading the name under the photo clipped to the folder. “We’re going to go mentally compromise the United States’ Secretary of Defense?”

Frost looks up from where she’s pouring herself a glass of white wine.

“Something wrong?” she asks, urbanely.

“We can’t Push the Secretary of Defense! I mean, how are we even supposed to get in to see him?”

“Shaw has an arrangement,” Frost says, like that explains anything. “And we can Push him. We have, in fact – you won’t be the first, or the last. Men in power need… encouraging.”

“I—“ Charles says, appalled. “I can’t believe—“

He winces, bringing a hand up to his head as pain spikes abruptly behind his eyes. Air travel never agrees with him: something about the drop in atmospheric pressure, perhaps. He looks up at Frost to continue, but is caught by the way light reflects in her pupils. They look larger than normal.

“I don’t—“ he says, and then falls asleep.

 

 

Charles jerks awake when they touch down with a thump and a rattle, blinking his eyes open to the landscape slowly blurring into focus in the fogged-up window.

“Are we there already?” he asks fuzzily, stretching his neck. He’s got a crick from the strange angle he slumbered in, and he’s sure there’s a read mark on his forehead from here it was pressing against the wall of the plane.

His question is answered when Riptide ducks out from the door leading into the nose where the pilot sits; they must be landed if he’s not flying the plane.

“Where…?” Charles says, still not all-together there.

Miss Frost answers him. “McNamara’s back yard, sugar. You’ve read the files – you know who he is.”

And indeed Charles does: Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense and a member of the new committee EXCOMM: Executive Committee of the National Security Council. A very important, very powerful man, basically.

“So I…”

“Convince him to send us funding. He should be amenable; you only need to Push him to forget our faces.”

Charles sags a bit in relief. It doesn’t feel right to change somebody’s mind like that, not really, although this isn’t a trivial matter. Division needs continued funding to keep researching the gene that creates mutants. They need to be able to buy equipment and maintain a safety net for other like them, to search others out and tell them they aren’t alone. Like Charles was alone, before he met other mutants.

Before Erik.

As he steps off the plane he gets a strange feeling, one that has been flitting around the edge of his consciousness for the past week or two, that he’s missing something. A kind of restlessness.

He shakes his head. Nerves, he reassures himself. It’s his first mission, after all.

They pass unmolested through the front hall – grand, but Charles has seen better – to an office, where Frost knocks.

“Come!” They are commanded, and enter.

McNamara is sitting behind an ornate wooden desk. It has neat piles of papers and a glass cup with gold-plated pens. It also has an “I <3 DC” mug on it.

Charles somehow talks his way through introductions and tries to impress upon the other man about the importance of more funding for Division; McNamara rebuffs all his statements, citing rising costs in preparing the military for the Russian threat and that Division hasn’t even made any usable breakthroughs in “military strength.” Each time Charles opens his mouth, McNamara talks over him.

“Sir!” Charles says finally, sharply. He glances at Emma, who widens her eyes. Charles sighs and nods, just a tiny dip of his head.

When he turns to look at McNamara again, his eyes are black.

He reaches into the other man’s mind lightly at first, but finds enough resistance that he has to pour a little bit more of himself into it.

“Now listen to me…” he says, and McNamara does.

Using his power this way is easy, so easy, almost a physical relief, like standing and stretching after hours sitting, the sweet ache of muscle used after being held still for too long. He can reach into the deepest, darkest depths of this man, do whatever he wills; he can hear and see and feel all his thoughts, hopes, dreams; he impresses that Division needs more funding and then opens his mouth again—

\--and winces, blinking and breaking eye contact as Frost steps forward. Her eyes are black too, sunglasses discarded, hung dangling carelessly from a finger.

 _ _My turn_ , _he hears as she flicks her gaze towards him. Her lips don’t move. __Nice job, big boy.__

When they get back to the Division complex the first thing Charles does is take a shower, scrubbing until his skin is red and tender. Then he pads his way to Eric’s door, hair still wet and curling on the nape of his neck.

“Charles.” Erik is dressed in sweats and a threadbare grey t-shirt, obviously not expecting company. “Back so soon?”

“Erik,” Charles begins, and stops because after that he has nothing else to say. He tries again. “Would you like to play a game of chess?”

Erik steps aside in invitation.

Charles has never actually seen the interior of Erik’s quarters before. They are as spartan as his own, perhaps even more so: basic furniture is present, the only other ornamentation a coin embedded in the wall above Erik’s headboard and a wooden chess set in the corner. He follows Erik with his eyes as the other man steps over to the desk, then the bed, and settles the chess board there.

Erik pats the mattress next to him, tiling his head. His gaze never wavers as Charles kicks off his shoes and joins him, curling a leg under himself, wary of ruining the bedspread’s military smoothness.

They play through the opening and into the middle-game; the only sounds in the room are the rustle of clothing as they move and the soft clack of pieces hitting the board, the slow in and out of Erik’s breathing, and his own.

“The mission went well,” Charles finds himself saying as he moves his knight. His fingers are starkly pale against the painted black of the piece.

Erik makes a non-committal sound. He’s staring hard at the board, idly stroking the curves of Charles’ captured pawns, movements slow and gliding and elegant. His hands are fine-boned, and Charles’ look stubby, clumsy in comparison.

Two more moves are made in silence. Erik threatens Charles’ bishop; Charles counters with a rook.

“Frost lied to me,” Charles continues, keeping his eyes down. He fiddles with the cuff of his sleeves, unbuttoned and loose. Erik notices.

“Did you know that you always wear that when we play?” he says, eyes almost blue to match the hue of Charles’ shirt.

Charles blinks. “Do I? I like it. It was a gift…”

He frowns. A gift from somebody, but he doesn’t remember who now. He rolls his shoulders and moves his other bishop to menace Erik’s knight.

Erik’s fingers twirl above his queen, like he’s going to move the piece without touching it. In the end, though, he merely moves his knight out of the way.

“It fits you well.”

Charles realizes that this is true; the shirt is the most comfortable of all his clothing, even his not-as-uncomfortable-as-they-originally-were pajamas. He nods and folds his hands under his chin to think.

“Thank you.”

He takes a little while to contemplate his next move. Eventually he castles.

Erik exhales and reaches for his queen. It’s almost a concession, although for what Charles doesn’t know.

“I nearly couldn’t Push the Secretary,” Charles admits. “Emma told me I wouldn’t have to, except to blur our features, but he wouldn’t listen—“

Erik quiets him by folding Charles’ hand in his palm. Charles looks up into Erik’s eyes.

“Nobody ever does.”

 

 

Everything looks better after a good night’s sleep, and so when Charles wakes up the next day he is in a significantly more upbeat mood. He eats breakfast with gusto (Erik isn’t there, unfortunately, but Charles isn’t a schoolgirl with a crush so he doesn’t pine) and then heads down to the lab, as has become his routine. Hank is there already, of course.

“Charles!” he says in greeting when Charles goes to tap him on the shoulder. “We’ve got a new blood sample for you. Do you remember how there was that one where the red blood cells would shift when introduced to certain vibrations that simulated sound?”

“Yes, that was quite fascinating. Did the person already agree to donate more?”¬

Hank blinks at him. “Um, sure,” he says. “They’ve been on the inhibition drug for a while, so see if that affects anything. And of course—“

“R-16, yes.” Charles takes the phial carefully from Hank’s fingers, mind already racing. “Have we documented how previous trials have affected abilities? How the drugs interact in a person’s system? What about…” He trails off into muttering, pacing over to his lab tables and gathering up equipment.

Hank watches him for a little while and then turns back to his own projects.

The rest of the afternoon slips away too quickly, sand running through the fingers of Charles’ perception. At around seven o’clock Erik knocks on the door. Charles can tell it’s him; he has a very distinctive knock.

“Dinner,” Erik announces, walking up to lean on the side of Charles’ lab table. He shoots a quick glance over at Hank. “You too.”

“Yessir,” Hank says, stumbling. “Er, I’ll just—finish this and—yeah—“

“You shouldn’t tease the poor boy,” Charles chides, voice soft enough so that only the two of them can hear.

“But then how would I ever amuse myself?” Erik says. He leans over to fiddle with a centrifuge, eyes the test tubes contained within. Charles swats his hand away. “Come, wrap up and eat with me. I’ve thought up a devilish new strategy to beat you with.”

“Oh?” says Charles, teasing. “Are you that confident?”

“Absolutely.” Erik smirks, looking at him from under lazy-lidded eyes. Charles blinks, swallows.

“Get ready to be proven wrong then, my friend.”

Despite the posturing, they loiter in comfortable silence as Charles waits for his centrifuge to finish whirling, eye on his watch. Erik helps to pack away the cleaned test tubes when they’re done and opens the door for him like the gentleman he isn’t.

“Dinner first,” he reminds Charles, as if he doesn’t have a perfectly good set of ears.

“Yes, of course,” Charles says. “What are they serving today?”

“Spaghetti.”

Charles perks up. “With the parmesan and the—“ he waves a hand. “Stuff?”

“With the parmesan and the,” hand wave, “stuff,” Erik confirms solemnly. Charles glares at him a little before he smiles, brushing their shoulders together.

“Fine, make fun of me. But we’ll see who’s laughing when I beat you tonight.”

“I’m sure I’ll come out on top,” Erik purrs.

“We’ll see,” Charles says. “We’ll see.”

 

 

After dinner and chess (once again in Erik’s room, the place is fast becoming more welcoming than his own) Charles takes the long walk back to his quarters in silence. Nearly everybody lives on site, too far away from any home they’d care to eke out, shrouded in secrecy; easier just to accept the convenience of concrete walls and windowless halls, but he see’s nobody. Likely they are all asleep, or nearly; the game lasted a good three hours, and dinner was taken late.

A cursory effort has the walls painted pale green and blue, but thick black stencils are sprayed onto the floor and the nooks under the ceiling, B-3 and C-17 with interrupted arrows pointing at empty air, and not for the first time Charles is reminded of the time he took a tour of a naval ship, the claustrophobic corridors and confusing maze of walkways held within. Division, at least, is much brighter lit.

Far away, Charles can almost hear a scream.

He blinks. Shakes his head, chides himself, “You’re hearing things, Xavier. Think of what Ra—“

What?

He frowns. This has been happening more and more often, offhand comments and references that seem familiar but that nobody can understand, not even himself. Charles would brush the lapses off as eccentricities, bits and phrases that he’s read long ago that surface occasionally from the depths of his subconscious, but they are too frequent to be ignored now. Besides, Erik always looks a bit sad, a bit smug every time he cuts himself off with a confused moue or a furrowed brow, and while he smoothes his expression admirably quickly, Charles still notices.

His feet find themselves moving toward the origin of the scream (or where he thinks the origin was, he doesn’t actually know) without conscious intent. He passes by his room, then the living areas altogether, heading back down a level to the labs and their harsh white walls, doors with a thin slice of glass, not large enough to see through. It is almost like a dream; he spots a man in a white lab coat exit one room, and only when he closes the door and the scream cuts off abruptly does Charles realize—

A glimpse of restraints, white-coated figures clustered around, a needle – a scalpel? – an IV line, all the trappings of an operating and recovery room in one.

Fear. Pain.

“Hey-!” The first man sees him and reaches out, and Charles reacts, knocks his arm away and runs, fast and hard as he can, hair in his eyes and breath ragged in his throat until he’s pounding on Erik’s door.

“What!” Erik begins, but Charles all but falls into the room and fists his hands in the soft t-shirt Erik wears to bed and pulls him down.

“Did you know about this?” he demands. “About what they’re doing?”

“About what who are doing?”

“Division! In the labs, I saw—she was screaming--“

Erik exhales. “Ah.”

“Ah?” Charles shouts. “Ah? They were torturing that poor, girl, I heard her, that is—“

“Charles,” Erik says firmly, covering his mouth with a broad hand and disentangling Charles’ fists from his shirt with the other. Charles considers biting, but restrains himself. It’s difficult.

“What, then?” he tries to say. It comes out more like “Uff, uhn?”

“I knew the block wouldn’t last long on you.” Erik is staring off at a point past Charles’ ear, expression strangely wistful. “I told Emma as much, but she never does listen to me…”

“Block?” Charles says, but can’t hear himself. There’s a roaring in his ears, behind his eyes and his face goes numb, he can’t feel Erik’s palm rough and warm against his lips, fingers pressed into his cheek, can’t breathe like he’s taken a steering wheel to the chest—

\--Raven laughing blue eyes pupils Vision Maine get out get out GET OUTGET--

“--OUT!” Charles realizes he is shouting, and Erik has his hands on his shoulders and is talking, trying to calm him and down and Charles doesn’t need to be calm, he needs to—

It’s so easy, to reach out and feel for the sense of Erik’s mind, to brush away the cobwebs of Emma’s influence smothering his thoughts, and as soon as that’s done he expands, rolling out like a wave. Most people in the building are sleeping, and those who aren’t he encourages to; down in the labs panic is staring to spread like a wildfire and he douses it, washing away the oil-slick of altered thoughts when he finds it, on a select and brilliant few, on Hank in his room, light in slumber and further out bright points of wary adrenaline, closing in, and then there’s the feeling of sunshine on the grounds of Westchester.

“Raven?” Charles gasps out loud.

 

 

Raven really is outside, about to break into a Division complex with some five other mutants.

“Who?” Erik asks, and Charles is dimly aware that he’s holding him up, fingers tight on his biceps. “Charles, what is going on?”

“The Resistance is attempting a rescue,” he says, plucking the thoughts neatly from the team leader’s mind. Half a second ago he didn’t even know there __was_ _ a Resistance. “For—Hank? Huh. Emma got to him too, I see. And my sister is with them, she’s here for me,” he adds. There’s a quick exchange, where are you/here--map of complex/plan to get you out/let me help/go to team leader/contact made/okay/love you/missed you/disengage and Charles brushes against another man’s mind, unfamiliar, focused and sharp and almost like Erik’s, but not quite.

__Hello, Charles Xavier here._ _

__Logan._ _ Impatience, a cursory attempt at being civil. No use for civilians here. __You got a way in? Power, status?__

Charles gives Logan everything he knows: who is asleep and who is not, a feel for the complex and what they’ve been doing, the (many) things he and Erik can do.

 _ _Be careful about Emma,_ _ he warns _. _I can’t feel her, but she must be around somewhere.__

Logan sends back acknowledgement and an urge to get anybody they can out; now that they have a telepath to battle Emma, they can actually do some damage instead of just trying to sneak one or two people away. Charles nods and blinks back to himself, eyes dry from staring into empty air. Erik hovers over him; he’s sitting on the ground, a dull ache in his tailbone.

“Did I fall over?” He takes Erik’s offered hand, standing with a groan.

“Yes.” Erik is curt. Charles can see the way the tendons are standing out on the backs of his hands, the tension of his shoulders, feel the terrifying looseness of his mind, no longer battling against itself for freedom. “What did you do?”

Charles gazes into Erik’s eyes, the clear grey of them, pinprick pupils. “You know what I did.”

Erik hisses in a breath, then lets it out just as softly. “We’ll have to talk later,” he says, voice gravelly. “For now… Tell me. With words.”

Charles can understand not wanting any mental contact after months (years?) of being Pushed. He explains quickly, sketching out Logan’s plan and their part in it, as guides and backup, a quick and dirty addition to a well thought out attack.

“Then let’s go,” Erik says. He heads for the door. “I assume you’re handling communications?”

“Since we don’t have radios, yes.” Charles follows, one hand rubbing at the base of his spine. “You do realize, if we need to be stealthy I’ll have to…”

“If it’s necessary,” Erik says curtly.

Charles nods. They walk quickly, heading down towards the laboratories and test rooms on the lowest floor, the ones that Charles never bothered to look in to. Emma has a lot to answer for, he thinks grimly. And this time, well, this time he won’t be caught off guard.

“Do you know who any of these people are?” he asks Erik, and casts his mind absently outward. Most of those who he wants to reach are drugged, muzzy and incoherent, smears of unintelligible color. He can’t get anything from them.

“Oh—incoming. Resistance!” he adds hurriedly when Erik claws his hand and rips metal out from the walls with a thwack-crunch-crackof breaking concrete. “They’re Resistance, Erik, be calm.”

Erik takes a breath and the metal pieces -- melted and crushed to be sharp, jagged, killing pieces of shrapnel – move into slow orbit around Erik’s head and torso.

“Charles—“ he says, but Charles cuts him off.

“Yes, sorry. I’ll be more specific in the future.” He smiles at Erik, adrenaline making everything sharp and bright and so very good, waking up after weeks of sleep, finally able to stretch. Erik’s eyes narrow at something he sees in Charles’ face, but before he can ask what’s wrong a pair of people are turning around the corner.

“Wait!” Charles cries as the lead man’s mouth opens. The exclamation is aimed toward both him and Erik. “We’re friends. My name is Charles, and this,” he gestures, “is Erik.”

“Scott,” says the stranger after pausing to swallow and cough a little. Now that Charles is paying attention to the physical, he seems very young. Certainly no more than twenty. “And this is Ororo. Comm designations Cyclops and Storm, respectively. You’re the Pusher, then?”

Charles lays a hand on Erik’s arm when the other man bristles, metal shards raising threateningly. “Yes, and a Reader. And Erik is a Mover, as you can probably see.”

He smiles wryly, trying to put the two at ease. Trying to project harmless without actually projecting.

“We were heading down to break the rest of the patients out, if you’d care to join us?”

Scott nods sharply.

Erik – the only word Charles can adequately use here is __hovers_ _ \-- hovers over him as they move down the hall and into the labs, stepping over people slumped on the floor from when Charles sent out his sleep suggestion.

“You did all this?” Storm asks. She has a light voice, mellifluous, that matches the graceful way she walks and her exotic white hair.

“Yes. I was rather, um,” here he cuts a sideways look at Erik, “surprised when Miss Frost’s hold on me broke, and went a bit overboard, I’m afraid. Put nearly everybody to sleep.”

“That must have been taxing,” she observes.

“Not terribly,” Charles says, and then yelps a bit as Erik stops, nearly causing Charles to run into him. “What—“

“Stop fishing,” Erik growls at Storm. He’s looming, in that way he does. Scott tenses; Charles sighs.

“It’s fine,” he soothes, laying a hand on Erik’s arm. His muscles are tense, hard and faintly trembling under Charles’ palm. “They’re allies, they should be allowed to know what I can do.”

Erik’s brows are lowered. “Then what can they do?”

“I’m a Bleeder,” Scott volunteers before Charles can say anything.

“And I, a Mover,” Storm says. “Now if we could continue with the mission?”

“Yes,” Charles says. “Please.”

They make it the rest of the way without incident, halls silent but for the hum of fluorescent lights and their own footsteps. Scott hisses when he sees the first victim, the woman Charles heard screaming before; she’s pale, terrifyingly limp in the restraints. Both Ororo and Erik raise their hands, Erik sharp and Ororo whip-fast and smooth, and the buckles holding her down snap. Charles steps forward, two fingers to his temple, and closes his eyes.

What he finds is like no other mind he’s felt before, not even those of the mentally disturbed, although there are similarities. Images whirl past, flickers of color and sound, more beating, knocking, slipping into her skull. This must be one of those mutants who can see the future: a Watcher. He struggles, gasping, nearly pulled in and drowned in the flood.

__So you found me._ _

White. Clear, crisp consciousness, and Charles reels a bit before regaining his bearings. In front of his is… not a person, not really. It seems as if this woman’s internal representation of herself is quite nebulous, which Charles would normally find fascinating, but—

“I’m Charles Xavier,” he says. “We’re breaking out of Division.”

__I know._ _

“You know? Oh, yes, the precognition. Well, currently you’re unconscious, so if you’d allow me…”

__No. I have to stay here._ _

“Stay--? Why?”

 _ _You’ll see, in time. Now__ listenseeunderstand _—_

And Charles is hit with a two-by-four in the allocortex, launched unceremoniously back into the waking world.

“What,” Erik is saying, hands on his shoulders, the small of his back, his waist. “Charles, are you all right? Charles, speak to me.”

“I’m fine,” Charles says, dazed. “She pulled me in, I didn’t know people could do that. Her mind…”

“Xavier,” a voice says, and it takes them a beat to realize it’s the woman.

He opens his mouth then realizes: he doesn’t know her name, not even after entering her mind, her very self.

“I’m here,” he gets out.

“Cassie,” the woman says. “Fifteen years, New York, seven-four-seven-seven. Remember.”

“I will, I will—can you get up? We have to get you out of here—“

“There’s no time,” Cassie(?) says. She sits up, pulls the IV tubes out of her arms. “Go. I need to stay.”

“What—“ Erik starts, and it’s both incredulous and dismissive, Charles can feel it in the air.

“Look!” says Cassie, and Charles does, instinctively, casts his mind outwards and plucks images from the air: Emma and Riptide striding down the corridor; Emma kicking a sleeping man contemptuously; a blinking red light; a hand reaching out to touch strange-cast metal, wrist encased in a heavy gold Rolex, the numbers on the face improbably counting down from ten. A mushroom cloud.

Charles reels back, palm slapped to his forehead, and Storm steps forward to support him. Erik stands and looks mutinous.

“We have to go,” Charles says when it doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating in something more insubstantial than air. “Now.”

“What’s going on?” Scott asks. His hand is clenched by his hip, weight on his toes.

“Emma is coming,” Charles says. “Let’s move!”

“But her,” Storm starts, and Erik lifts a hand in preparation to Move the medical gurney Cassie is on.

“No!” Charles barks at the same time she does.

“No,” he repeats even as she slides off the cot and staggers toward the cabinets on the side of the room, yanking them out and trailing her fingers over the vials inside. “She wants to stay. She has to stay.”

“Has to?” Erik looms, jaw set. “I’m not leaving anyone to Division, Charles—“

“It’s the only way we get out!” Charles lashes out. “Do you understand? She buys us time to get everybody out, or else Emma catches up to us and knocks me unconscious and all the guards get up and you die Erik, do you understand? We need to go, and leave her here, and do it now.”

Erik’s lips thin, but he looks at Cassie and she smiles serenely, packing syringes filled with a clear substance into her pockets, and then he nods once, sharply. Scott and Storm are already moving towards the doorway, although the both of them look backwards as they leave.

 _ _Goodbye,_ _ Cassie sends. __Remember what I told you.__

Charles will.

 

They fairly fly through the hallways, Storm and Erik ripping doors off their hinges and Charles broadcasting a telepathic message to get out, get to the surface. When they reach the end of the complex Charles motions to follow him and darts up the stairs to the fourth sublevel, down two corners and to the doors of his lab. His keycard doesn’t work, of course, with the complex on lockdown, but Erik takes care of that with a squeal of tortured metal. Charles steps through the wreckage and heads straight for his computer to frantically delete his files.

Then he goes for the physical evidence; blood samples, any new iterations of the power-inhibition drug, anything at all that Hank was working on. And he grabs his notebook.

“Trash the place,” he says after he’s done. “And the other labs too, as we leave. Quickly, please!”

Erik raises his hands; Ororo does so as well, hair floating around her in an invisible breeze. Scott steps outside and Charles flinches as he hears a scream that’s almost subsonic, followed immediately by shattering glass.

Bleeders. Fascinating.

For a moment Charles feels guilty about leaving so much destruction behind. If nothing else, Division was a great center for scientific advancement, and most of the people there really didn’t know exactly what was going on. But as Erik crushes another door or Storm levitates a sleeping agent out of the way he remembers the terrible violation Division has been perpetrating on mutants, on human beings, and the feeling passes.

“Ah,” he says, panting as they run through yet another hallway on their way upwards to freedom, “Raven and the rest will meet us topside. They have Hank,” he adds as an afterthought.

“And then?” Erik growls, and it occurs to Charles that he may be nervous. He has been working for the opposite side these last months, after all, and can’t be certain of his welcome.

“I’m sure that after we all get to safety, we can work something out.”

Erik’s snort says what he thinks of that idea, but he lets it go for the moment. This is good, because—

“Emma is around the next corner!” Charles cries, and turns abruptly left. If he recalls correctly, there should be a lab that has connecting doors, bringing them out into another hallway that will still bring them to the stairs – and freedom.

He hears Erik swear behind him, and Scott as well; Storm lets out a sharp huff of air and turns on a dime, wonderfully adaptive. He quite admires her, in a slightly fearful kind of way. A bit like he admires Erik.

Halfway through a step pain spikes at Charles’ temples and he stumbles, nearly smacking his nose into the edge of a table. As it is a stool catches him in the shin and he yelps, watching the floor rush up to meet him—

But then he jerks and stops, hovering a foot above the floor. A blanket force covers his entire front, not unlike the sensation of a particularly firm mattress, and when he is set on his feet he turns to see Storm lowering her arms.

“Thank you,” Charles gasps, grateful and a little bit surprised. He may (may!) have been expecting Erik to be the one holding him up.

“You are welcome,” Storm says. “If we could continue…?”

“Yes,” Charles says.

Then he crumples to his knees.

Erik, he notes dreamily, is shouting something, eyebrows and mouth turned down almost comically. A warm hand rests on his arm and he grips it for support, but he can’t see; his vision is sparkling white, a hundred thousand reflecting mirrors.

No. A prism.

“You’ve got no defenses at all, do you,” Frost marvels. She stand in front of him, suddenly, impeccably dressed in a tailored white suit. “Your mind is just open for the taking.”

“Why are you doing this?” Charles asks. “Why are you working for Shaw? I know you don’t like him.”

Frost shrugs. “I may not like him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a great man. He’s going to make the world a safer place. For all of us.”

“That isn’t true. Just look around here—this isn’t safe, not for those poor people you’ve been experimenting on.”

“The needs of the many.” She brings fingers to her lips holding a cigarette that wasn’t there a half-second ago. “How else are we to get stronger? To evolve?”

“I can’t let you do this.”

“Oh, professor,” Frost laughs. “You aren’t _letting_ me do anything.”

On his next breath pain hits him like a blow, like a sound so high it gets right past the eardrums and sticks in the back of the skull, like a dental drill on exposed nerves, reverberating agony. Charles screams, he thinks, but can’t hear himself in this mental world. His concentration is shattered, he’s helpless—

But no, he isn’t, because he is never helpless, not since that moment when he turned six and realized he could hear the maid making her grocery list from the other side of the house. Not when he can make others do his will.

And this, this entire place is ruled by the mind.

Charles doesn’t actually know exactly how powerful he is. He has had little contact with other Pushers except for Frost, who has always gotten the better of him. But that has been because he wasn’t ready, wasn’t expecting an intrusion into his mind, and this time she is not stealing in behind his eyes to carefully drape a veil over his memories but is instead leading a full frontal assault, force and not finesse.

Charles can bring much more force to bear than she can.

He breathes in and thinks of dark clouds and lightening, of the time when he was a boy and rain lashed the windows so hard they rattled, when the crack-boom of thunder was so loud he thought he might go deaf. He thinks of the dark, terrible power that nature holds, and how he too holds that same power, passed through a millennia of evolution to get him to this point, this one point in time, and he breathes it in and wraps himself in it and as he begins to feel overwhelmed—

Releases, and watches in awe at the slow destruction that follows.

It’s nothing like an explosion, fast and loud and brutal; instead it’s like seeing a tsunami from the air, all slow inevitability and building momentum that destroys everything in its path. Frost’s anchors on his mind are washed away and the tide sweeps her back into her own head, engulfs her so that she’s all but drowning. She has no strength to spare from shoring up her defenses for another attack.

Charles sighs, and opens his eyes. He has a terrible headache.

The first thing he sees is the floor, because he is still being levitated by Storm. Glass is scattered over it, splinters of plaster and metal, and even a little blood.

He moves his mouth.

“What,” he says, and wonders at the rasp in his voice. Surely he hasn’t been unconscious for so long? “What happened?”

“Charles!” He isn’t sure, but Erik sounds rather relieved.

“A Pusher and Mover were waiting for us,” Scott says. Frost and Riptide. “Good job with her, by the way, she collapsed pretty fast. We took care of the other one too. Can you walk?”

Charles wobbles a little, but regains his feet quickly.

“Thank you.” He smiles at Storm, sheepish. “Again.”

“It was my pleasure,” she says. Charles can practically hear Erik rolling his eyes.

They run once more for the stairs.

 

When they emerge into the open air Raven screams and launches herself towards them, and Charles is so consumed by joy that he nearly doesn’t notice Erik’s almost-flinch, the instinctive raise of the metal pieces still circling around his waist.

“Raven!” He’s laughing, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and he buries his face in her hair. “Raven, oh, I missed you.”

She squeezes him back tightly, hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and then pulls away to punch him hard on the arm.

“Don’t you ever do that do me again!” she shouts as he yelps. “You, you just collapsed, and told me to run, and I left you there…”

“Oh, Raven,” Charles says, and gathers her close once more. She doesn’t resist, just leans into him, and he can feel a wetness against his chest, the shaking in her shoulders.

“I promise, I won’t leave you again.”


End file.
